Listen to Me Rant

I'm putting my writing into a podcast, because only me reading it will truly translate some of those raw emotions that come with my mother and our relationship.

Just the other day, I got my bangs cut again.  Not the wispy kind, the blunt against your forehead, look like I just came from Japan (no offense Japan) kind.  My mom hates these bangs.  And so, I haven't facetimed her just yet with them down.  I've clipped them back, wore a headband, or turned the phone to my kids.  For some reason, it's easier to not endure the critique she will immediately have and things she will say about how ugly my hair is.  I guess you could say I've gotten smarter, doing things I want to without her knowing, feels manipulative almost, but it's just our relationship.  When I was younger, I always wanted permed hair, much like most of the youth in the late 80's early 90's, but of course, she would not allow it.  In many ways, she scared me into submission, because I still have never permed my hair.  I guess those are the things I want to talk about, and explore with my podcast.  How I've become an adult, and sort of let go of those fears... or found coping mechanisms.

My podcast is currently on #spreaker, but it's also going to be listed on ITunes and Stitcher, both of which I have no idea how to link just yet.. so here's the link via Spreaker, my goal is to do super short daily episodes.  I have two so far... yeah, yeah, yet another thing I do... but seriously, two years ago, I really wanted to do this, but at the time, you had to get all this equipment and it seemed too hard, but now it's super duper easy!  Have a whirl if you please.

Click to listen to Yellow Is A Color Too podcast

Also, if you've been following along this blog, the stories are all the same, I plan to read most of my blog posts (with some improvised additions here and there) first.  If you enjoyed it, please share with friends, because though part of doing this is for my posterity to have mom's voice forever, it's also cool if other people enjoy it too.  Right?  I think...

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

Stuff White People Celebrate

Do you know why my kids all own bright green shirts, some even with shamrocks on them?  Do you know why we watch extensive YouTube videos about the history of the holiday every single year?  Do you know why I know that St. Patrick's Day is on March 17th every single year?  Do you know why we entertain rainbows, gold, and glitter green for the month of March?  Do you know why I wake up earlier to stamp green feet on our toilet and put green food coloring into our toilet? 

As a kid growing up with an immigrant mom who had just made her way to America in the early 80s, I was never well equipped for St. Patrick's Day at school.  Sure, the teachers were kind and would  give me a green shamrock sticker, but for the rest of the day, I was labeled as the kid who didn't know it was the day to wear green, a badge of shame and embarrassment and to me, being the dumb Chinese kid who didn't know any better.  I hated St. Patrick's Day.  I hated how everyone else had green.  I hated how even if I had known, I wouldn't have had any green pieces of clothing.  I hated how the one year I was prepared, everyone said my "green" sweater was actually grey. 

And so I vowed, at a young age, that my kids would own at least one BRIGHT GREEN piece of clothing.  That they would NEVER endure the ridicule of pinches and not wearing green.  Of course now, with today's world, there's so much sensitivity around not bullying other kids, so I'll also teach my kids to be kind to others not wearing green.  To tolerate that the grey shirt they thought was green, is indeed green.  To respect the shamrock stickers some kids have.  And to have fun with the leprechauns, the pots of gold, and green food. 

St. Patrick's Day is Saturday people.  It's time to get ready. 

I Am Chinese

My mom has always told me I’m Chinese.  Not American despite being born here.  I have always rebutted her assertion with the fact that I am actually Chinese-American.  She usually thinks about it for a few seconds, and then gives me this dismissive look of disapproval before agreeing to accept it.  I guess it’s better that Chinese is still a part of me. 

But when I tell her it’s too hard to speak Mandarin to my kids all the time when my husband doesn’t speak it, she turns into a raging Chinese mom, reminding me that I am Chinese!  Do I not know that?  She has once said, "if you cannot teach your kids Chinese language, then you have failed as a mom." Ummm, excuse me?  So, it's not enough that I love them and nurture them, cook for them, take them out, do fun things with them, because well, if they don't speak Chinese, then I have somehow failed regardless of any other efforts?!  It's infuriating!  

I just don't understand her sometimes.  Is she saying this stuff because she hasn't thought it through and she thinks her threats of failure still mean something to me even though I'm an adult with my own opinions now?  Does she still think I'm a teenager refusing to agree with her, only to tell her she was right later on?  I'm not sure!  "Well, I did it, so why can't you?!"  I mean... honestly, this is not my first time hearing that (because unsolicited parenthood advice is so popular), but STILL!  Come on!!!  It is not apples to apples, both my parents spoke Chinese first, English second.  Both my parents lived in America while still holding onto their Chinese identity, culture, and traditions, refusing to fully assimilate with the American culture.  It's so different for them and for me.  The challenges we face may be similar, but at the same time, they're also different!  I appreciate my parents sacrificing all that the did to come here, to this foreign land of too much cheese, but I wish they would realize, along the way, I kind of became American.  

Of course, all the strangers who stop to ask me where I’m from would suggest otherwise.  Why can’t people just say, “what is your ethnicity?”  Is that so hard?  You don’t really care where I am from and if you want to know where my ancestors are from so you can figure out what I am ethnically, just ask what my ethnicity is!  The next time someone asks me where I’m from or what I am, I’ll tell them I’m from my mom’s tummy and I am a human. 

In reality, I guess it's safe to say I’m lost somewhere between American and Chinese.  I learned to speak Chinese before I learned English, but I was never in ESL.  I ate Chinese food before I ate American food, but I am a sucker for both now.  I even watched Chinese soap operas before I watched American ones, though it's rare that I'd watch a Chinese movie or show these days.   

The good news is I’m not alone.  There are a bunch of us ABC kids who were raised by our Tiger Moms, sent to Chinese school, taken to dim sum every weekend, and taught that we were Chinese, not American.  The symptoms of such classifications consist of large Chinglish speaking abilities, ridicule by anyone in Taiwan about how ABC dark and large we are, harsh judgment from white people in the 90’s about the Chinese food we consume whilst in America (because these days, all Chinese food, fusion or not, seems to be trending and hip), and belittled laughter from Chinese people about our weak stomachs when we can’t quite hang with the authentic street food when we visited Taiwan. 

It took quite some time for me to fully realize we just didn’t celebrate American holidays like true Americans.  In school, I was taught about how the Indians and Pilgrims celebrated that momentous meal that began the tradition for all future Thanksgiving meals.  This meant a meal full of corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce would make everyone giddy with excitement.  We had turkey just like everyone else, but ours was always stuffed with sticky oily rice and our sides were always stir fried bok choy, noodles, mushrooms, and lettuce wraps. Cranberry sauce or stuffing?  That was a myth in our household.  I never had either with turkey until I was in college.  Meatloaf?  What the heck is that?  I didn't have my first meatloaf until I was married and having dinner with my husband's family a few years ago.  

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.  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 it was cute but that it wouldn’t fit on our door.  I wasn’t devasted.  I wasn’t even sad.  I just accepted it as a reasonable explanation and moved on.  And then, when we used 6 pack can plastic ring to make another wreath, I did it with very little effort, knowing my Chinese mother would just throw it away afterwards.  It didn't bother me, at least I don't think it did... just holding onto these memories might suggest otherwise.... but on the onset, I don't think it bugged me, I just knew this was life, and made a mental note to be a bit different with my own kids' future crafts.  

As a Chinese immigrant child, I didn’t have anyone reconcile the American and Chinese traditions to me, I just appreciated what we did have.  Chinese New Year.  Lucky red envelopes with money in them.  Chinese fireworks to scare off the monster, Nian.  Grand dancing lions and dragons.  Burnt incense and food offerings for the ancestors who had passed before me.  I eventually stopped wondering when Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny would come, and started to focus on what mattered – grades.

While American mothers were teaching their kids how to make chocolate chip cookies, I was rolling glutinous rice balls for our red bean soup.  I don’t recall ever baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom.  We always purchased baked goods from the American grocery stores for bake sale donations.  Sometimes, we even stuffed them into ziploc bags to look more authentic and homemade.  When I first discovered cake box mix and learned that those scrumptious cupcakes room mothers brought to us for holiday parties was easy to make at home, I was in pure heaven.  I could not believe my lucky stars, and began making boxed cake mix ALL. THE. TIME.  I even bought the little sugar crystals and store packaged frosting to go with it, so I could relive my favorite part of the elementary school holiday parties: the cake box mix made cupcakes the room moms brought us!  

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.  Girl scouts.  Soccer.  Pretty much any sport for that matter, which is a shame, because I am one tall girl!  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, 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 longed for crimped hair, curled hair, or big bangs.  Instead, I had flat straight Chinese hair tied up with fobby hair ties.  And yet I had a fantastic childhood… one filled with Chinese expectations and American struggles and Chinese American happiness and success.

The Mickey Mouse Bar Story

When I was a kid, I had an obsessive love and attraction to ice cream.  I'm told one of my first words was, "aye-shwe" which my parents thought was me attempting to say love-water in Mandarin.  They would bring me water, and I would slap it away furious they couldn't decode my words.  They'd try with food, with toys, anything they could think of, and I would swat it away again and again, all whilst anxiously screaming out "aye-shwe!"  It would be a few days before they figured out I meant ICE CREAM, as I clapped my hands and screamed, "aye-shwe! aye shwe!" as they fed me some.

Some of my best memories come from ice cream.  Ice cream was almost always a happy time for me.  The sweet taste of cold dairy and sugar coupled with the toasty aroma of waffle cones was just so heavenly.  On top of that, ice cream was so lovely and pleasant to the eye!  I can still spend hours pouring over different combinations of sprinkles.  The perfect spirals and dreamy dollups pull at my heart strings.  The chocolate dipped and then covered with sprinkles waffle bowls or cones make my knees weak with delight. 

I loved the pink and brown polka dots from the 31 Baskin Robbins ice cream store, but I was consumed by the pink spoons and everything they embodied - which for me was the reminder of happy moments we had our ice cream trips with me as the only child.  I liked the pink spoons so much that a college boyfriend would attach twelve of them to floral wiring and stems for an anniversary present, one I would cherish the sweetness and look at it, and get happy with anticipation.  Even now, as a grown adult, whenever I see a pink Baskin Robbins spoon, I still get butterflies in my stomach.  The anticipation.  The giddiness.  The excitement.  The pure joy. 

As a child, we also frequented Thrifty ice cream about once a week when we went to the laundromat.  The weekend ritual would begin with loading our clothes into an empty washer, followed by my mom or dad walking me over to grab a Thrifty ice cream cone.  I was pretty basic as a kid, it was pretty much rainbow sherbet, because the flavor wasn't bad but really I liked to stare aimlessly at the swirl of colors, wondering what additional color I'd find with another lick.  My favorite licks were the purple and pinks, but a lot of times, pink would emerge as the leader.  I savored the delicious joy every week as I waited patiently for my parents to finish their laundry.  I loved this little tradition.

The only time ice cream didn't make me happy was when it became a teaching moment from my mom about how to be more filial.  I liked ice cream, but I also liked all things Disney, so when I saw the cute vanilla and chocolate Mickey Mouse ice cream bars that they sold at Disneyland in the local grocery store, I was ecstatic and begged my mom to get some.  She agreed, and I was the luckiest girl ever.  Or so I thought.  When we went home, I asked my mom if I could have a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar, and she said yes.  I opened up my bar, so amped up, carefully pulling apart the plastic wrap so that it wouldn't impact my precious Mickey Mouse bar.  Before I could eat it, my mom asked me for a bite.  "No, get your own," I responded like only a six year old could.  I mean, in my defense, the box came with more than one bar.  Without any warning, my mom swiped the bar from me, and ate it.  I SCREAMED in agony.  As I did, she continued to eat it, telling me that I deserved what I was getting and that I needed to be more filial and loving and supportive of my mother.  I yelled.  I hit the wood floors and pounded with my fiery fists on the floor, all while she kept eating MY MICKEY MOUSE ICE CREAM BAR!  She continued to repeat herself, that I should have just given her a bite, that I should have thought of her first.  What kind of a daughter was I?  Didn't I know how to be a good Chinese daughter?  Obedient and filial, and always thinking of my mother, who by the way, bought me this bar!  Ungrateful little spoiled American child.  She threw away the rest of the box.  At least that's what my memory tells me. 

From that day on, my mom always got offered a bite of whatever I was having, and if I failed to ask first and she wanted a bite, she would get a bite.

I tell my kids this story often.  They gasp at what a monster po po was, and then they tell me that I should have given her a bite first.  I remind them now that they must always offer me a bite, but then reassure them that I would never eat ALL of something the way their po po had.  They nod in unison and praise for their wonderful mother. 

When I tell my mom about this, she recalls that Mickey Mouse bar.  "It was so disgusting, I was so upset that I had to eat it all to teach you.  Oh the sacrificing a mom makes to teach her kids how to being the best." 

Ugh.

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.