Yellow Is A Color Too

So.. this is a bit freaky.. cuz I'm putting myself out there, but I dunno how to find a publisher, and so many of you have said, "you should get this stuff published!" and while I think it's the same story as every other immigrant child growing up in the U.S., I guess it is new to some people.. so if you so fancy a podcast, feel free to search for it under podcasts via iTunes or Stitcher, and you should find it!  Free download, I have up to 5 hours before I have to pay to do this.  HA! 

Chinese Play Kitchen Labels - Free Download!

My mom told me, "you are a failure of a Mom if your kids cannot speak Chinese" the other day.  She's said it a few times since.  It is pretty annoying.... but unfortunately, it has stayed with me, because I know I could put more effort but since my oldest is in the Chinese immersion program and the others will follow suite, I haven't done much.  I did purchase some vocabulary flashcards and I did come up with some materials for a Chinese camp with other about to be first graders, but that has been the extent of my Chinese efforts.  I haven't even been speaking to them enough, it's been so bad that when I asked my daughter (who is 3) where her head was in Chinese, she was dumbfounded.  Oh no, I have not gone over stuff in so long that they do not even know the basics! 

So I am committing to be better.  I started by creating some printable labels for our play kitchen stuff.  Here's hoping it plays out and I am reminded to use Chinese with the littles during play time at home.  I plan to print these out and laminate (the cheap way: using packaging tape). 

Play Kitchen Chinese and English Printable

Don't Smile So Big

For as long as I can remember, I've had a love hate relationship with smiling.  I was a thumb sucker until the sixth grade, a few months into having braces, so for most of my life, there was an obvious overbite in my smile.  My mom reminded me of this fact often when she told me to smile with my mouth closed.  Smile less.  Keep those gums hidden.

When we were kids, the dessert slices of oranges at Chinese restaurants were used to stick into our mouth to make alternative "orange slice smiles."  It was hilarious because the slices fit perfectly, wedged into our mouth, the orange peel took the place of our teeth and gums!  My cousins and I would always shove orange slices into our entire mouth as our parents yelled as us to stop, mainly because our mouth might permanently become large.  To this day, my mom will remind me that had I been a more obedient Chinese daughter and avoided stuffing oranges into my mouth, I'd likely have a smaller and more delightful smile.

In the second grade... I kept my mouth closed for the school photos, resulting in a weird asian Wednesday Adams death stare.  The pigtails and the collar didn't help either.  Where were my big bangs and big bows?  I hate that photo so much.  I'm the awkward asian girl not smiling because her mom told her not to.  When I came home with this photo, she clarified that she meant I should just smile with my mouth closed, not close my mouth and not smile.  It's confusing... I know. 

The relationship with smiling became more complicated once I got braces.  Braces involve miniature metal boxes glued onto your teeth then connected through a wire.  Besides the constant sores and food stuck between your teeth, there was also the added space that now made it harder for your mouth to sit comfortably over the metal bulge.  My pre-existing overbite combined with the brace face made for a big mouth.  I was reminded of this constantly from my mom, who told me to laugh a little lighter, smile a little smaller, and basically, hide that huge brace face from the rest of the world for fear of scaring them off.

As a an impressionable 11 year old, it was hard to be laughing one moment and then hear my mom yelling to tone it down and close that big mouth of braces.  I felt like she was embarrassed for me. She seemed to cringe when I opened my mouth too large.  My gums were too big.  My smile was too gross.  My laugh too much.   

I felt isolated.  Not only was the pain of each monthly tightening so physically tormenting, but the random reminders that beauty was pain flew in through periodic canker sores created by the wire ends that were not properly cut off by the orthodontist.  No scars were ever left, in fact I don't think there are any remnants of braces leftover in my mouth today, but the painful memories of bloody canker sores that resided in the insides of my cheeks made my mouth a temporarily permanent living hell.  The head gear, though only required at night, was even worse.  The metal device confined me to a painful existence of expediting that overbite by pulling my teeth in towards me, as hard and as tight as possible.  It was so incredible painful, that most nights I'd go to sleep with it on only to then slip it off in the middle of the night.  At monthly appointments, I'd perfect the art of lying when my orthodontist asked if I was using it correctly.  I'd respond with an innocent and obedient nod and a harmless assertion that I indeed was, sometimes I'd even ask questions about if I was doing it correctly to over emphasize that I was indeed using it.  Often, I'd hear affirmations such as, "looks like that head gear is working!" - accolades I'd snicker but gracefully collect, month after month, until one day, the orthodontist said I could stop wearing my head gear.  What a sucker. I remember thinking about my orthodontist, the man I'd grow to hate for everything he represented on a monthly basis (seriously, does anyone like their orthodontist or dentist?...)  

On top of the pain... there was the recommendation to stop smiling.  Combined, it was overbearingly awful. 

I was fairly confident that my moms reminders to stop smiling meant I was ugly.  What else could it mean?  Well technically I was beautiful, just not when I smiled so big or so much.  

In middle school, still brace faced, and still insecure about my smile, I came home with a school picture of myself with a dark brown lipstick (that was cool then) and..... *gasp... a smile.  My hair was down and to the side, and I thought it was a great photo.  I showed the picture to my mom proudly, and she told me, as a matter of factly, "You should have smiled less." 

I looked at the photo over and over.  I analyzed my smile.  I thought about her words.  Slowly, I began to agree with her.  What was wrong with my goofy clown smile?!  Why did I smile so big? 

I started to obsess in front of a mirror.  I'd smile, look at my smile with content approval, and then, I'd smile, take the mirror away, go back in front of the mirror, and see if the smile stayed.  Once I was advanced at this, I'd try smiling without a mirror first, then get a mirror in front of me and see what the smile looked like.  I practiced over and over, trying to memorize the muscles used to smile when it looked okay, and when it looked too big.  I had to make sure I had a good smile.  I found that the less I smiled, but just sort of opened my mouth, the better it seemed to look.  

When retakes were offered, I immediately signed up.  This time, I would utilize the practice I had painfully subjected myself to for hours.  

The result was a weird open mouth non-smile picture.  

Defeated, I hid all the photos ordered and didn't pass any of them out.  When the yearbook came out at the end of the year, they had used the original wide mouth smile and embarrassed, I ripped out the picture of me out.  I was mortified by my own bad photo and sorely disappointed that my smiling practice hadn't worked.

When my mom asked to see my yearbook, and saw a photo ripped out, she flipped.  She did not teach me to be insecure and hate myself (or did she?)  In a fit of rage, she ripped my entire yearbook, screaming that if I couldn't handle one bad photo of myself, what would the rest of my life be like?  And if I decided I could rip out my own photo, then I didn't deserve a yearbook at all.  I sometimes wonder if she enjoyed shredding my yearbook with her bare hands.  It sure seemed like it at the time.  I was stunned... and felt like I had brought this torment upon myself.  

I did not get spanked.  I did not get grounded.  I just did not have a yearbook commemorating the year.  

When seventh grade finished, I was sure of one thing... not to smile too big.  

And then drill team try outs for captain began.  I absolutely LOVED the drill team.  I was a drilling machine, and to this day, I can still do the try-out routine perfectly, as well as my captain tryout routine.  My friends who had been in local drill team competitions in neighboring cities, helped me with my tryout routine, and since they had been local champions two years in a row, the drills they helped me perfect were quite spectacular, unlike anything our own team had seen before.  

But when tryouts came around, I did not smile.  I launched the static smile I had been working on to fulfill my mother's requests of not smiling too big.  My braces did not want to shine, they wanted to be peeked at slightly, so I made sure my smile was small but present.  Throughout the tryouts, the former captains kept shooting back at me these weird and almost uncomfortable, but surprisingly large smiles, as if to convey I should mirror them back.  I refused.  I knew a large smile would be too much, my mother had made this minor detail quite clear to me over the past few years. And frankly, I wasn't brave enough to defy my mother again... I'd seen the consequences of self hating my own photo, this was the only way to redeem myself.   

Despite having one of the best tryout routines, I did not make captain.  I was one of six line leaders, and I was frankly, a bit surprised.  Everyone knew that the best routines made captain, and I was one of the best drill team members with the best routine.  While everyone else did repeated iterations of the existing parade routine, I had amazing new moves (copied from my champion drill friends, but nobody knew that...) and I hadn't made a single error.  I had even seen some of the routines the other girls had prepared, and none of them were anywhere close to the technical difficulty of my drill routine.  

Something clicked inside me that day.  I was mad, sad... and then I was rejuvenated with a newfound understanding and power in the form of knowing.  I suddenly understood that my mom was not always right, and that she had in fact, unintentionally sabotaged my try outs.  All of a sudden, the awkward smiles the leaders watching my try out kept shooting at me, made perfect sense.  Of course they would want someone confident with both drill team moves AND a smile!  What was I thinking?!  From that day forth, I have smiled as big and loud and as proud as ever.  And I have never stopped.  

I smiled my way to multiple dance teams, ones that I may not have technically be qualified for, but heck if I wasn't going to try.  If I didn't make a team, it wasn't going to be because I didn't smile, it was going to be because I messed up a turn or a leap or didn't have a great routine. And I kept on smiling, even when my mom whispered it may have been a little too much.  No Mom!  You do NOT get to dictate my smiles anymore!!!

Sadly, I did not learn this lesson in time for my eighth grade photos.  Everytime I saw my yearbook photo, I was reminded of the stoic face I had throughout my entire tryout routine.  Ugh.

On the day of my wedding, if you listened closely to the sounds of frantic excitement and happiness, you could hear my mom reminding me not to smile too big.  "Zuǐbā bu yào zhāng nàme dà! (don't make your mouth so big!) When she saw some of the professional photos from the wedding afterward, she made some comments about this photo my mouth was too big, and that photo - oh, what a big mouth you have.

Ignore and smile, bigger if possible, sometimes to irritate her even more.

Sure, it took me 13 years, but that epiphany of mother not always being right, has never left me. Knowing that has helped me smile larger and prouder than ever before, from every moment after that, regardless of what my mom might say.

The Battle of the Paper Bag

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be white.  But not just any white… blonde hair blue eyed white.  Aryan German Hitler white.  Color contacts and bleach were only a step away from making that a reality but my dear mother would never have let me live if she knew I was even contemplating it.  In my defense, growing up in the 80’s guaranteed a desire to be blonde hair and blue eyed because the hipness of diversity or the reality of being politically correct wouldn’t quite make its way into generally accepted mainstream America until much later. 

In the 80’s, all the toy commercials featured white girls and white boys, none of the Barbie dolls I had were Asian and none of the cartoons had any Asians.  Who didn’t want blonde hair like the Sweet Valley Twins?  Even The BabySitters Club only had one token Asian girl, but she of course was Japanese and did I mention, growing up – there weren’t many Japanese kids?  If there were, they were so Americanized, they didn’t even eat sushi, use chopsticks, or speak Japanese, and they didn’t even have to go to Japanese school like us Chinese and Korean kids did.  They were usually third or fourth generation Asians, so far removed from the experiences we were going through – I mean, their parents spoke perfect English for goodness sake.  Some of them even had parents who went to college… in America!  It just didn’t compare to our life as an American born Chinese growing up with immigrant parents. 

But I didn’t want just the blonde hair and blue eyes, I wanted everything that went with it.  Mac’n’cheese, spaghetti, and burgers served for dinner at home instead of rice and various Chinese dishes every single night.  Cool neon clothes and spandex shorts with crimped hair, big bangs, and curly neon hair ties instead of my flat jet black hair and oversized broken English shirts imported from Taiwan (you always go two to three sizes bigger so you can wear the clothes for a longer period of time). 

My mom tried.  But none of it mattered much to her anyway.  In our own little immigrant world, what mattered was how long you practiced the piano everyday, how many extracurricular activities you were committed to and your grades in school.

As a mother of three kids four and under, I am now constantly trying to find ways for my kids to experience their Chinese culture, encouraging them to eat with chopsticks and try authentic Chinese dishes, and while doing so, other moms and strangers are always praising me for introducing such an advantage to my children at a young age.  Maybe it’s the times.  Maybe it’s living in a big city.  Whatever the case, diversity is certainly celebrated in ways unheard of in the 80’s.

Growing up, I not only was mocked and humiliated for my dried pork and rice wrapped in seaweed lunch, I was scarred.  I am still in disbelief when I see how hip and cool bento boxes are among the food bloggers of today.  It certainly wasn’t acceptable when I lived through it. 

I know most people don’t remember things that happened from second grade.  But I’ve never forgotten it and it certainly fuels my ambitions to teach my own children the cultural sensitivities they must embody as they interact with other kids who might be different.     

The blue picnic tables separated with an invisible separation of “kids who brought their lunch” and “kids who bought their lunch,” and for the most part, it was also “Americanized kids” and “immigrant children.”  If you brought your lunch, immediately went into the “packed lunch” line and ate your lunch right away while the “school ticketed” students stood in the right lane, and paid for a typical American lunch with your pre-paid lunch ticket.  The American kids hated bought lunch.  It was so cliché to them.  Breakfast for lunch?  Spaghetti for lunch?  Tater tots?  Mashed potatoes?  Hot dogs?  But for an immigrant child, this was the land of unspoken American food, only experienced at school for our immigrant parents never bought us such things.  The only downside to the ticketed line was how long it took to get your lunch.  While we waited and waited, those with paper bag homemade lunches made their way to the benches immediately and enjoyed their American homemade sack lunches with Capri Suns, Squeeze Its, fruit by the foot, gushers, goldfish, PB&J, or if they were really lucky… lunchables!

Initially, I wanted a cute little brown sack just like the white kids. I wanted so badly to be just like them.  The line for hot served lunch was long and tediously slow (unless your class got their first but mine never seemed to), meanwhile the sack lunch bag went straight to eat and were first to leave for recess. 

I had to beg my mom to buy brown paper bags from the grocery store. 

“But you just throw these away after?” she asked me with skepticism. She couldn’t figure out why my metal lunch boxes complete with thermos cups weren’t good enough, or why we even had to purchase paper bags when those would suffice.  

“Yes, but that way I won’t lose it!” I explained.  I had obviously done my due diligence and was ready to win the paper bag fight. 

“If you use a lunch box, you can just bring it home, I wash it and you can use it again!” she said.

“This is what all the kids are using Mom!” I pleaded.

“Everyone go jumping off a cliff, you join with them too?” she asked.

“Well, it’s not a cliff, it’s just paper bags for lunch, so yes!” I responded. If my memory serves me right, I was a pretty smart second grader.   

I knew this would be a tough battle.  Asians are notorious for their frugal ways.  We always had a bag of plastic bags, ready to be reused, we never left a restaurant without all the superfluous napkins leftover, our house was strewn with unofficial Tupperware that had lived a prior life as spaghetti jars, cool whip containers, etc. and though our home had not been subject to the “leave all the packaging protectors on” rule, I had enough uncles and aunts with saran wrap over their remotes and plastic covers on their tables on top of the tablecloths, that I too knew, this would be a hard sell.

At a young age, my mom had hammered into my head the importance of budgeting and saving.  Do it yourself was not a project for the weekend for us, it was a way of life.  Weekends were filled with trips to numerous garage sales in upscale cities or large flea markets and I knew what Ross was but didn’t quite understand the concept of the mall until my high school years (we just never shopped there until later).  My mom loved to say, “No wine taste with beer salary” which confused me until I was in college age and closer to drinking age.  Committed to our frugal ways, our dishwasher served as a drying rack and I never knew a soft towel (besides at a hotel) since all our stuff was air dried in the warm California sun.  It wasn’t until I was 27 that I would have to learn how to use a dishwasher as a dishwasher for the first time, and college would quickly teach me that dryers shrink sweaters.  We always had a dryer, we just never used it correctly.

            I used to think being cheap was an Asian thing.  The pure joy and excitement my aunts and uncles had along with my own parents about a good deal was never short lived.  It’s almost as if the food tasted better when it was a good bargain.  Or that the supplies worked better when it was discounted.  When the 99 Cent Store chains finally made its debut in a neighboring city, we went ballistic over the stock.  I still remember my cousin stocking up on Dove nose strips from the store, explaining what a steal it was compared to the Save-On drug stores.  My entire family was infectious with cheapness.  It wasn’t until I got older that I realized cheapness knows no boundaries and doesn't discriminate.  Cheapness unites all ages, races, genders, and religions.  

One of the roommates I had in my 20’s was exceptionally frugal, and she was white!  Blond hair, blue eyed, white girl WHITE.  She rarely ate out, she made her own meals three times a day, and she reused red silo cups by running them through the top shelf of the dishwasher.  While I was eating out for lunch and dinner everyday and secretly throwing away all the used red silo cups after hosting a night of friends at our apartment, she was purchasing her first car with ALL cash after a year of working, and still shopping at Ross while I toted my little brown bag from the nearest Bloomingdales with pride.  It was then that I realized… frugality is not limited to my Asian family.  It was then that I also started to celebrate the frugal ways my family had taught me all my life.  I mean if you think about it, it’s actually a smart way to live.  

           

I did win the paper bag argument.  But it wasn’t easy.  And it didn’t last long.  When I buy paper bags now, I chuckle at the memory of how long I had to work to persuade my mom.  These days, everyone is environmentally conscious, and they understand that using a bento box will help the environment by reducing our trash and "carbon footprint."  Back in the day, all my Asian family members were using lunch boxes because paper bags were wasteful.  If we recycled, it was because there were machines that gave us coins in return for our trash!  

"Why to use a paper bag when we have leftover tupperware from the cool whip?  Or the cream cheese?  Or the lunch meat?  Ai-yah, just use it!"  

Like me, you may never look at a paper bag the same again... 

My paper bag story is not done.  Yes, it's a long one... as many of my memories are.  

So.... I probably brought lunch a few times, but I only distinctly remember one time that I was sent with a paper bag, the one I wanted so desperately before....  

I asked my mom to make me a pb&j sandwich, like the cool kids.   

"A what?" she asked.

"A peanut butter and jelly sandwich,"  I repeated.  

"I dunno what that is.  You eat what I make.  You don't complain, or you go hungry."

And that was that.  So, the day came and I took my lunch with gratitude, not knowing what might be in it.  None of it mattered much, because my lunch would reside in a brown paper sack, my ticket to the east side.  I proudly held my brown paper sack, got into the quick line, and sat down with the kids on the east side.  She wrapped it in foil, who does that.  Why couldn't we have normal ziploc bags like everyone else?  I opened it slowly, not sure what I'd find.  Ohhh, I was actually quite happy.  I loved dried pork with rice wrapped in seaweed.  Yum, I thought.  I guess this is better than a sandwich.  The kids around me thought differently.  

Ridicule.  Laughter.  Disgust.  It felt more like intolerant hate, but really, they just didn't get it.  It was cruel.  It was painful.  It was... just what kids do with unfamiliar territory, but still... it sucked.

Is that seaweed?!  Apparently, the kids back in 1988 didn’t have seaweed as an organic snack as the kids today do.  Nor did Costco or Trader Joe’s sell them as a hip snack for white people (no offense white people, but this is how it feels when I see something I was mocked for celebrated and eaten by everyone now.. I'm unsure whether I should be happy or mad, but mostly I lean towards the former).  Well.... unfortunately, back in 1988, my seaweed labeled me as an outsider.  Do you also eat raw fish? Some kids asked me (when I say some kids, I mean white kids).  Well technically, I wouldn’t try raw fish sushi until I was at least sixteen, but the thought that my parents did already embarrassed me, and I met their teases with silence as I struggled to figure out what to do.  I was ashamed of my lunch, still hungry for it, but not sure how I could even take another bite.  Why did I have to be so different.  I didn't cry though, I'm not a crying person.  To this day, I rarely cry.  So I didn't.  But with every fiber and emotion in my body, the awful memory seared itself in my mind.     

This was a moment I had been waiting for and yet here I was… wanting nothing than to be far away from these mean white people who didn’t understand the food I ate at home.  I wanted to be back with the other Asian kids who were excited for tater tots and breakfast for lunch and school lunch pizza.  Not the snobby white kids who laughed at the nasty lunches that paled in comparison to that which they ate at home.  No more paper bags for me.  So I left.  And I never went back. 

I mustered up the courage to ask my mom to buy lunch.  She was not pleased with my fickle indecisiveness.  I didn’t want to tell her someone had made fun of my lunch.  She would have probably personally approached this child’s parents with a word or two, or three, about how inappropriately they had raised their child, and made me bring more sushi to school for lunch.  Instead, I told her I thought it was more affordable to buy lunch because of how much you got, fresh and hot, and that it wouldn’t waste her time and money going to the store to buy paper bags you would just throw away.  She seemed pleased with my logic at the age of seven.  The convenience was priceless and saved me from ever facing the cruelty of the culturally inept children of the 80’s.  How happy I am that bento boxes are in and it’s now cool to be diverse and welcoming of other cultures.  It means my kids will never experience the painfully mortifying experiences I went through.   

What's Wrong With Napkins?

Whenever we were on our way out of a restaurant, I used to be really embarrassed when my grandma would stuff the unused napkins into her purse.  The whole Chinese people being cheap stereotype would suddenly ring tremendously loud and clear.  I always wished she would just leave them but more concerning was that nobody would see me.  If I ever did anything that let on I was a bit mortified, my grandma would make an even bigger deal about it.  The Chinese way is to be cheap but not to be ashamed of it, we hold our heads up high and boast of all the money we saved (even if it's not really that much).

I always wondered why my Chinese grandma was so adamant about taking those napkins.  It's not like we couldn't afford napkins on our own.  We had plenty of napkins.  

Buffets were another thing.  Despite the signs saying we were forbidden to take food out, big purses and napkins spoke otherwise.  

In fact, I used to be really ashamed.  I also used to think cheapness was a Chinese thing.  And then I grew up and I realized, my grandma wasn't always being cheap.  She was being frugal, smart, and green (okay, maybe not with the buffets so much but the restaurants would just throw the unused napkins away anyway).  I also now recognize that cheapness doesn't discriminate.  On top of that, I myself have inherited quite a bit of those habits that used to drive me crazy.  Am I cheap?  Or am I Chinese?  It's debatable... 

Plus, we really love our napkins.  Though we weren't wealthy by any means, we also weren't poor.. and yet, growing up, the bathrooms in our house would more often than not, run out of toilet paper and my mom would always forget to buy more.  So most of the time, a pile of napkins would be the only solution.  My brother and I used to bug my mom about it, and whenever we did.. she'd reply with, "What's wrong with napkins?!"  

A good Chinese daughter would say nothing.  But I'm not always a good Chinese daughter...

Practice Piano Everyday

When it comes to the piano, my mom and I are both a success and a failure.

She started me at the age of five.  She made sure I practiced an hour each day when she was home (when she wasn't, I would lie that I had practiced when I had really just sat there playing songs I already knew).  I was like the little girl from Joy Luck Club who just "pretended" to practice and took advantage of her mom's inability to properly read sheet music.  I just didn't care for it, but I did it because it was expected of me and no matter how much I begged my parents to quit, my mom took charge and unrelentingly refused.

I am actually one of the few kids out of my Asian group of friends growing up who made it through years of piano practice and was still playing my senior year of high school.  I cannot describe the sublime joy I felt when I was finally emancipated from the piano.

We didn't have the best of beginnings.  Nobody ever taught me the notes, I just remember being yelled at to keep my hands in an apple shape, pretending I was holding an apple while I played.  when I saw a note, I looked towards the number above it and played whatever finger corresponded with it.  These numbers, I would come to learn, were the suggested positions of which finger to use, not the actual notes.  The pretty notes below it just danced around for me - I had no understanding of any music theory.  When I played a wrong note, my piano teacher would hit my hand, and muscle memory would kick in.  I didn't understand the different counts for each note, but the teacher would play the songs and my ear would pick up the melody and I'd mimic it.  

I eventually had to "start over" so to speak, learn all my notes, learn to read sheet music, and play the actual notes instead of the number positions.  I went on to play the piano for thirteen years.  I participated in the California Certificate of Merit program from levels two through advanced, and through a compromise with my mom, no longer had to play the piano after that.

Despite being pretty good at the end of my piano life, I still suck at reading sheet music.  I can sit there and figure out the beats that get translated with each time signature and note, but I do not have the ability to purely sight read and play the way my husband plays.  I don't have any desire to sit at my piano to play anything, unless I want to impress my mom and bring a smile to her face.  It taught me patience, how to do something you hate and not be half bad, but we've parted ways and said our good-byes.  The piano is just a distant memory of something my mom made me do everyday.

And yes, my kids will be playing the piano.  And practicing an hour a day.  And too bad, mom and dad both know the piano and will know if they're just fooling around.  Poor kids.

Start 'em early right? 

Being Polite to Adults

In the Chinese culture, you always politely address female adults as auntie ayi and male adults as uncles shushu even if you're not actually related.  Anyone on the younger side is addressed as older brother gege or older sister jiejie.  It became such a routine thing to do, that I'd always without fail, greet an adult with ayi hao or shushu hao.  For some unknown reason, my mom never managed to hear it, and would always immediately ask me if I had addressed my elders yet.  Instead of saying I had, it was just easier to say it again... so repeat I did and appease her I did too.  The complication arose when I had non-Chinese friends, but my mom taught me to always use Mr. and Mrs. and insert last name.  This was the polite thing to do.

This worked perfectly well until my transition into adulthood.  It started in college.  I went to a small liberal arts college in southern California where surprisingly (sarcastically said) the population of Asians was a more truthful representation of the real world.  We made up about 8-9% of the school population.  This was where I was a true minority for the first time and where I met parents of my white friends which then resulted in an awkward hesitation and thoughts of whether to address my friends' parents with Mr. or Mrs. or the first names they advised me to use. I always ended up using Mr. and Mrs. - it just felt right.  Always the obedient Chinese daughter. ...

And then one day, I met my future in-laws.  When I met them, they were still technically just parents of a friend so their polite correction of Mr. and Mrs. and suggestion to use their first names was quickly dismissed.  And then their son and I started dating, and the dilemma grew.  Do I call them by their first name (as they requested) or Mr. and Mrs. as my mom had instructed me my entire life?!  And then they became my in-laws and I just abandoned my Chinese upbringing and decided to adapt to the American way.  The first few times my mom heard me use their first names, she corrected me.  I tried to explain to her that they advised me to use their first names, that it wasn't simply me being rude or defiant.  She didn't really get it.  But as long as my husband never called her by her first name, she was fine with it.  So over time, the outrage (from my mom) and fear (from me) of using the improper address faded and we both became a little more American.

#Chinesemomsay 

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?

Sun Being Bad For You

I've been wearing SPF on my face everyday since I was 12 years old.  My mom gave me an Oil of Olay bottle of SPF moisturizer with a stern warning to use it everyday.  And since then... I may have strayed a few days here and there, but for the most part, my face is always, at a minimum, shielded by SPF 25.

Summers growing up when I became extremely tan, my mom would yell at me for being too dark.  "Are you using enough sunblock?!" she'd ask over and over and over again.  Slowly over time.. the disgust for sun kissed darkness grew on me.  Though I shunned Darth Vader visors, umbrellas in the sun, and never put gloves on while driving (all of which my mom still does), I was afraid of the sun, but not just anywhere... only particularly on my face.  I hated the idea of a super tan complexion on my face, my body - I cared not so much.  I'd put a hand towel over my face if I was ever relaxing on the beach.  I'd seek out comfort in the shade whenever possible and of course I had my strict skin care regiment that consisted of whitening face wash, whitening face cream, and whitening face masks.

said visor for sale! get your visors now!!!

And then one day, I was thirty and driving my then only child around in our van, and I suddenly had the instinctive reaction to seek out a shirt to wear over my arms which were being exposed to the sun.  It happened without warning.  It happened without thought.  It happened without reason.  It just happened.

I had turn into my mom.  Suddenly, the thought of age spots on my arms from years to come of chauffeuring my kids and their friends around became a much closer and fathomable reality.  Suddenly, the realization that the sun was bad for me sunk in even deeper and I sought out refuge in the form of sun protection.  I had indeed turned into the scared of the sun maniac my mom had been all those years and I understood why she had done it.  I understood the Darth Vader visor.  I understood the umbrella in the sun.  I understood the arm covers whilst driving.  I understood it all too well.

ever wonder why Asian babies always have hats on them?  question answered.

People often wonder why Asians age so well.  They say it might be genetic, but I know the truth.  They are SPF crazies and sun haters.

ask my husband, I won't go to any amusement park without a hat, even if it doesn't match

Eat All Your Rice or Marry a Crater Face

All my life, the expectation was to finish my food.  This meant I was forced to finish every last bite of rice in my bowl, no matter how full I was.  In the situation where I left some rice, I'd be threatened with the old Chinese wives' tale that I'd grow up and marry a crater face or ma lien.

This is not the worst outcome in life, but having heard it over and over again, I'd put my head down, obedient and filial, and finish my rice without further thought.

In terms of being picky about food, the same expectation applied, meaning there was no option.  You ate what you were given, no matter how much you disliked it  In Chinese, there's this phrase called pien shi which means selectively picky and you are NEVER EVER to be this when it comes to eating.

I didn't really believe my mom, but I ate all my food because that's what a good Chinese daughter does and I never had much of a rebellious streak in me.  But when middle school came along and I found myself crushing on a guy with true craters in his face, I ate my rice even faster and with more intention than ever before.  Every single rice grain in my bowl was consumed.

With time, the crush on the crater face subsided - that, or I was eating all my rice properly.  

Years later, when my fiance had a pimple on his cheek that turned into a scar, I questioned myself about whether I was eating all my rice again, as if I had fated him with the whole in his face.  It's not like I believe any of it, but better safe than sorry right?

the crater in question on the left side of his face... it's disappeared now but was quite prominent for a while when I didn't finish my rice...

Eat Fruit and Stay Skinny.

The first time I realized the advantage of being an Asian child (besides being good at math, oh wait - I'm not...) was when I was working my first official job in the real world after I graduated from college.

Since I worked at a public accounting firm, when it was "busy season" for us, lunch and dinner were usually comped.  It was a pretty neat little perk also known as newbie 20.  It wasn't until my pants were already sitting a bit tightly a few weeks into busy season that I realized newbie 20 was on its way and would be a lot scarier than the college freshman 15.  Since I was living at home at the time, (but really I was living in the back of my parents home in the garage add on turned studio that they personally updated and painted two shades of purple for me), my mom, more afraid of my weight gain than me, sent me to work with some "healthy snacks" while lecturing me about not letting myself go. Despite the sugar in fruit, it was just assumed that you couldn't get fat on fruit.  So my mom would tell me to eat fruit and stay skinny.

This normally meant I was sent out of the house with a ziploc bag or tupperware of one of the following:

• apples
• strawberries
• pineapples
• blueberries
• oranges
• clementines
• grapes
• watermelon
• honey dew
• cantaloupe 
• Korean melons
• Asian pears

But what really separated my fruit from the others was that it was always prepared in a way that it was ready to eat, like the outrageously expensive fresh cut fruit at Whole Foods.  My mom made sure all my apples were peeled, sliced, and dipped in salted water (to preserve it longer), my strawberries had the crown removed, my pineapples, watermelon, and melons were always deseeded, peeled and cored before being cut into bite size pieces, my oranges were peeled, and my grapes were removed from the stems.  Time consuming, but this is just how Asian moms do it.  

I know.. because everyone at work who wasn't Asian became amazed that my mom put the time and effort into preparing my fruit.  Meanwhile, everyone who was Asian would comment about missing their own moms who obviously did the same.  My ready to eat fruit was not special in the Asian world, just the American one.   

Then, when I lived with a white girl in my mid 20's, I'd learn it really was an Asian thing.  Whenever we had friends come over, we'd prepare a bunch of fruit and cheese, and I'd always be in the sink, removing the grapes from the stems before rinsing them.  Meanwhile, she'd look on in disbelief before asking me why I was doing that.  And we never even bought melons or anything that would require serious labor prep. 

Honestly, I hadn't even though about it.. it was just mere habit and it was the only way I had eaten grapes my entire life.  Who ate grapes in a cluster besides Cleopatra?  I really thought that.  But I tried to adapt to being more American, and started to just leave the grapes as is, but it always felt so foreign and uncomfortable.  Why didn't everyone just remove their dang grapes and then rinse 'em?!

And then I'd spend a weekend with Asian girlfriends and we'd all prepare the fruit the same.  Someone would immediately hull the strawberries, another would peel the Clementines, and I would remove the grapes before rinsing.  Someone would always ask, "who wants to cut the melons?" 

Maybe that's why Asians don't usually have dessert, just fruit.  It takes so much time to prepare, you might as well enjoy it.  A slice of orange after dinner?  Some watermelon, why yes please.  I don't mind if I do.  Especially if my mom has already cut it.. which by the way, if I'm home visiting the family, I know there's always at least five types of already prepared fruit in the fridge for me to munch on.  Ahh, the good life.