Tiger Babies Strike Back

by Kim Wong Keltner

  By the 1950s, prosperity had come to many Chinese American families, including my own. In photos of my relatives’ high school classes, the Chinese gals wear cat-eye glasses, pedal pushers, and teenybopper outfits identical to those of their blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates. In other pictures from this decade, I’ve come across Chinese American girls in bathing suit contests, or dressed as cheerleaders, or sitting in soda fountains, all resembling black-haired Bettys and Veronicas from Archie comics.

  As far as the 1960s are concerned, I don’t picture too many young, Chinese American women running off to become flower children, despite Chinatown’s relative proximity to Golden Gate Park. During this decade, Chinese Americans were still working diligently to achieve their goals of assimilation. Despite the phenomenon of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene at the time, I think there was a huge disconnect between America’s then-burgeoning counterculture and Chinese Americans. We weren’t ready yet to embrace hippie insouciance and bad hygiene. In contrast, many were still holding on to their identity as patriotic Americans. Those second-generation Number One Sons had just earned their engineering degrees on the GI Bill and went to work for Boeing and Lockheed Corporation. We were still pursuing the American Dream, not trying to debunk its myths and dismantle it.

  In the 1970s, I was just a kid in a Star Wars T-shirt, riding my banana-seat bicycle and making detailed drawings of R2-D2 and C-3PO after Chinese school and piano lessons. I was eating rice gruel with salted pork and washing that fatty Chinese goodness down with a Shamrock Shake.

  At that time, my mother’s youngest siblings boasted feathered hair, KC and the Sunshine Band records, and Camaros. I watched them with fascination as they talked about dates, making out, and drinking tequila sunrises at local fern bars like Henry Africa’s and Lord Jim’s. Would I have been like them if I had been an adult then? I’d like to think not, but who knows?

  As it was, in the 1980s I morphed into a Flock of Seagulls fan with a wedge hairdo. It was during this period that Newsweek put Asian Americans on its cover, declaring us model minorities. Ice skater Tiffany Chin was the latest incarnation of the Asian good girl, Connie Chung was on TV, and the model Ariane starred with Mickey Rourke in Year of the Dragon. Movies like Big Trouble in Little China and Tai-Pan were evidence that Hollywood still projected Asians through a distorted lens, but I did see enough Asian representation in the media to feel like any profession was within my grasp. There were local newscasters like Jan Yanehiro on Evening Magazine, and bylines by Ben Fong-Torres in Rolling Stone. I didn’t particularly feel like a minority, especially in San Francisco.

  And I guess I wasn’t. At the time, criticism was just coming to the forefront regarding the University of California and admissions requirements that were possibly biased against Asian Americans. Apparently, we were outperforming white applicants on either test scores or GPAs or both and were being held to higher standards in order to be offered acceptance letters. The bottom line was that the order of the universe might have come crashing down if there were more Asians than whites on campus. Well, so much for thinking we were ideal minorities. Now we were just too good for our own good, and our numbers needed to be controlled. It was 1987, but hadn’t we heard “The Chinese Must Go” one hundred years earlier? Admissions requirements were subsequently tweaked and retweaked, and to this day the debates rage on about affirmative action and racial quotas in college admissions.

  The options for Chinese women in America have evolved from limited to limitless. The doors of access have been thrown open so we can now achieve the pinnacle of every field. So naturally, it seems, Chinese women would crush any and all competition on the playing field of motherhood, too, right?

  But raising and loving human beings is different from studying for tests and rising through the professional ranks. In academics and the corporate world, crucial skills that lead to success are memorization, the application of logic, and delineating sharp goals and adhering to those lines and properties. Parenthood, however, is not about memorization but requires total improvisation. You must deal with your gurgling spawn whose non-sequitur style of talking and bathroom needs defy logic. And last, in this new reality, all concepts of hygiene, discipline, social hierarchy, and sometimes morals become blurred. Boundaries once clearly drawn, as well as your sanity, dissolve.

  Motherhood is not about outlining a foolproof plan, because none exists when it comes to your baby. So when all your skills of diligence and exactitude prove to be ineffective, how can you not just succeed, but win? Failure is most certainly never an option. So maybe women who are accustomed to high levels of perfection then take the logical route, and just try to clamp down harder to gain control of an uncontrollable situation.

  Et voilà! That’s when the Tiger Mother enters stage right. (And of course, she is always right.)

  The Tiger Mom is like a modern, virulent strain of the dragon lady that, with each generation, becomes more and more resistant to the human body’s natural ability to fight back. And we are the ones who’ve let this infectious personality rage out of control and ravage our systems. Tiger Babies, there are currently no antibiotics that can help us combat this formidable foe that flows through our bloodstreams. Our hearts will have to pump out the courage to fight back with love and empathy for our Tiger Parents. They are missing the chromosome for tenderness, and we must somehow be the stem cell donors to help them.

  The generations that came before us were working so hard to survive, to earn money, and to get a foothold in work and society that many of us were left to raise ourselves. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Even if we were lucky enough to have food and clothes, and our other basic needs were otherwise provided for, we did not necessarily ever feel emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually sustained.

  Chinese Americans have achieved so much from the first waves of immigration to the present. The next frontier is an abstract one. We are not strangers on a different physical shore, but in our hearts and minds. Our houses may be already built, but we the children of the first and second generations are still begging to be let in.

  Let me in, Mom. I know the door to your heart isn’t rusted shut.

  7

  Rise of the 3.2 GPAs

  There ought to be an explanatory parable:

  The Maker of the Universe gave Chinese people many attributes: ambition, perseverance, and nearsightedness. But the day when emotional availability was being handed out, Chinese people were too busy shopping at Costco, and forcing their kids to play piano. Plus, this emotional availability thing seemed to be not very expensive, and of very poor quality. So they disregarded it. Blew it off. It didn’t seem like anything they needed, especially because it didn’t seem to impress their friends, make money, taste good, or denote status. They sniffed at it and said, “Eh.”

  But when their kids and grandkids moved to America, achieved great successes, but then refused to come visit, the Chinese people got a vague whiff that maybe that emotional availability thing might have had some use after all. But they couldn’t admit they had made a mistake. So instead they just called their children lazy and blamed them for liking non-Chinese things such as cheddar cheese.

  Over time, the parents began to buy five-pound hunks of Tillamook at Costco, but sentimentality is still, even to this day, unavailable in bulk at discount stores.

  Now that Chinese Americans have indeed attained and achieved so much, can we be big enough to admit that we are not Number One all the time?

  Through many generations of physical and mental perseverance, backbreaking work, and the swallowing of our pride, Chinese people have always held steadfast to the concept of The Best. We like to think that we are the best at doing everything. We raise the best kids. We own and consume the best name brands. Chinese people are THE BEST. I guess it’s inevitable that when the best doesn’t quite work out, we’ve also got the best rate of offing ourselves. So we’re the best, even in death. Those stupid other races. They think they can compete with Chines
e! We even have suicide dialed.

  My aunt who said I’d be a loser without a Mercedes-Benz? Her sister killed herself by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge before she turned twenty-seven years old. There’s a connection somehow. That’s proof right there that something sucks in Chinese thinking.

  Wake up, overachievers. Wake up, underachievers. No one has to kill themselves anymore. We adhered to standards of superiority because throughout our history we have been treated blatantly as inferior. No wonder we subsequently claimed to have invented everything good: ice cream, spaghetti, pugs, the color pink, potstickers, and superior parenting à la Tiger Mom.

  But now that we are sitting pretty, or at least have secured a growing claim to the American middle class, could we now ease up on the posture that we are the best at everything?

  Not every Chinese kid is going to play Carnegie Hall, have his or her picture taken with the president of the United States, or become a city supervisor or state assemblywoman. We aren’t all filet mignon. Statistically, some of us have to be the cheap cuts. Some of us are just stew meat.

  The emperor of China has no clothes, but no one is talking about anything. And somebody has got to say something. Asian people usually won’t voluntarily expose their own shortcomings, pain, petty jealousies, or embarrassing moments. That leaves a writer with only herself as subject matter. I hope that sharing my utterly human, world-class, stupid mistakes might drill a tiny hole in the Great Wall of Chinese silence. For you, Kind Reader, I undertake this alarming task with my bare hands. My only tools are words that I’ve linked together like a chain of paper clips. I hope that what I’ve written can pull someone through.

  Anyone.

  People like you and me.

  Because of the hardships they endured, or maybe because they still have one foot in the old world, our Tiger Moms and Tiger Dads might never stop pushing us toward being the best. They might never concede that without being absolutely number one we are still fine people, or good sons and daughters. If we are just fairly accomplished in our careers, have great kids of our own, or are happy individuals or kind human beings, our achievements are somehow never enough for our Tiger Parents.

  Then to add insult to injury, as time goes by, our stoic, unyielding, older parents will only see the past through their rose-colored eyewear. “What are you complaining about?” they might say. They are good at pretending not to notice the faint scars—on our bodies, our psyches, and our hearts. They’ll shrug off any beatings we endured, saying we succeeded because of their toughness, not despite it.

  We adult children of Tiger Parents want acknowledgment of the deep pains, emotional or physical, that our moms and dads caused. We want an apology. We might settle for an admission of regret, but we might never even get that.

  My brother once confronted our mother about the spankings he suffered as a child. He was very brave to even bring up the subject. But her response was not all that satisfying. Our mother said, “If that did happen to you, then I am sorry.”

  Please notice the evasive wording. I’m not sure how my mom can still sometimes mix up the pronouns he and she, but in a pinch, she instantaneously mastered the English language’s conditional verb tense. Her sentence left plenty of room for interpretation. She did not at all own up to anything, really. And that totally sucked.

  So in this way, when attempting to confront Tiger Parents, one might experience the futility in hauling them in for questioning. Our requests for accountability might never stick. They somehow always make bail.

  They are not the ones in jail.

  We are.

  We are in emotional jail, on emotional death row.

  Tiger Babies, since we can’t do anything about our elders’ emotional availability, maybe at least we can do something for ourselves.

  Let’s stop pretending that all this jockeying to be the best is working for any of us. Let’s stop leasing those luxury cars for appearance’s sake, and rise up in our hoopties to declare that we are here, so get used to us. Let’s throw away those report cards, because we’re not in high school anymore.

  What matters is who we are now.

  PART 2

  Peek Behind the Curtain

  8

  A Tale of Two Runts

  If Chinese families can have Tiger Moms, then inevitably there must be Tiger Runts, n’est-ce pas? No one will admit to their existence. They live, but they are shunted aside. Passed over. Insulted and hidden away. Just like in the wild, the weak are often left to perish. And yet here we are, not going away anytime soon.

  We are oftentimes the youngest children in our families, we the artists, writers, truth tellers, and whistle-blowers. We are the deal breakers. This statement does not come from scientific evidence. I’m just saying that some of us are usually the ones who are accommodating everyone. We change our schedules to fit around parents and elder children because everyone else is more adept at playing My Time Is More Important Than Yours.

  How many daughters are out there like me, just doing everything because . . . just because? We’ve always been marshmallows, but now we’ve been left out in the cold so long that we’re starting to develop an unpleasant crust.

  Unpleasant crust, here we come!

  I think when a woman turns forty she has the right to finally decide she’s no longer gonna do crap she doesn’t wanna do. I’m busy and I’m tired.

  When is enough, enough? For some, never. I have a few relatives who will live with their parents until the very end. They are not boomerang babies, going off to college and then returning to freeload for the rest of their lives. Rather, they never left. They are the family sacrifices. As hard as it is to say, there are some Asian parents who will willfully keep down a child just to ensure that they themselves will never be alone. It’s a big thing in Chinese culture: Who will look after me when I’m old? Who will tend to my grave? Get over it, Granny! You’ve ruined your kid’s life just so you wouldn’t have to watch TV alone. Just so you could have someone to complain to, and to keep down.

  I’ve seen it happen. And it happens a lot to youngests. What, exactly, is happening here? You are clung to and kept at home. You are the default maid, butler, companion, surrogate spouse, best friend, and adult child forever. You are kept alive to serve others. You might look just fine from the outside, but out in public, on your invisible choke chain called Love, you look shell-shocked. Your parents still monitor your every move and won’t or can’t let you go. As the father says to the son in Flower Drum Song, “When that day come when you can think for yourself, I will let you know!”

  Except that your Chinese parents might never let you know. Maybe you’re the most succulent piglet of the litter, and they believe no one will ever be good enough for you. Or, conversely, they can take the opposite tactic and make you think no one will love or tolerate you but them. Either way, they’ve pulled you in like the Death Star with magnetic power, and you can’t escape.

  Perhaps you are just collateral damage. A Tiger Parent who exalts one kid into high achievement might keep you on the side to quell his or her loneliness while Number One is off ruling the world. Hey, someone’s gotta stay home and do the dishes. Someone’s gotta dust the portraits of accomplished Chinese Americans like Michelle Kwan that your parents place prominently on top of the outdated VCR seemingly just to mock you.

  It’s all very unfair, and we have to not fall for these parental ruses. Maybe the parents themselves don’t even know they are pushing us into these limited roles. Your brother is off to Little League, but you stay with your mom. Or your sister is off to dance class, but you stay at home. Are you the sacrifice? Maybe you are too shy to do anything, but by the time you decide you can risk making a peep to express your outside interests, it’s too late. Maybe the family has become dependent on your staying home. You might not even be out of your teens, but your role in your family, and in life, has already swallowed you whole.

  I have one family friend like this. I’ll call her Allison. Strangely enough, her
birth order blows my theory because she is, in fact, the eldest of her siblings. But this does happen, too. In her case, starting from childhood, she had always been The Favorite. As Allison got older, it was as if her mom really couldn’t bear the thought of her dearest darling out in the world. Maybe the mom transferred all her own fears onto Allison, and to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her, she didn’t let anything at all happen to her, not even the potentially good things. So Allison’s mom shrank her world, until there was only mom to live for.

  Allison is always by her mother’s side. She doesn’t go anywhere or do anything without her mother. She is a grown woman, now way past forty. She cooks and cleans, and what else does she do all day? She is in the house, sleeping in the twin bed where she slept as a child, the empty bunk beds of her siblings who’ve all left home still stacked there. The old beds are abandoned, still affixed with their decals and stickers, left there with only Allison for company. It’s just Allison and the old stuffed animals, with her parents in the adjacent room.

  Creepy. Safe. A catch-22.

  She’s taken care of financially. She will always have a roof over her head, and her clothing and food are provided. Her mom takes her shopping at department stores, and they go to the grocery store and she does have some say in what gets bought. But she doesn’t drive. Never goes on dates, and never has. She will never be a hostess at her own party or have her own friends. In a way, she is just like a Victorian spinster, except with a flat-screen TV and a freezer full of salted caramel gelato.