When Chinese babies are born, it is a tradition to dress them in animal-motif hats and booties, usually representing pigs or tigers. The idea is to trick evil spirits into thinking that the precious baby is actually just a common piglet or other such lowly creature, hardly worth stealing away. It makes me wonder if Chinese parents’ constant putting down of their children is related to this custom. Thus, no matter how good-looking or smart your children are, it’s always best not to call attention to them. Maybe that’s why, even if you are highly accomplished, your parent will always treat you like a humble worm.
My mother has always been a beauty, but my grandma Lucy’s way of handing out selective compliments distorted my mom’s self-image. My mom says, “Jeannette was the pretty one. I was always so ugly!” Even when my mother and I flip through her wedding album, she refers to herself as “ugly.” And when I hear her say that, I can’t believe it. In every photo she looks absolutely gorgeous. It makes me sad to think my mother has gone through life not knowing how pretty she is.
However, with Chinese parents, no compliment seems to go unpunished. Grandma Lucy often praised my aunt as the pretty one, but often also commented that she had no common sense. So she was good-looking but dumb. And in this same style of distorted logic, my grandmother calling my mom “ugly” was perhaps meant as a backhanded way of calling her smart. It was obviously not an actual compliment of any kind, but rather some type of cultural one-two punch that continued the long tradition of parental withholding. And we all know it’s only the bad stuff that sticks. So my mom only heard “ugly” and that was that.
As a young teen my mother had a job in a Chinatown shop, and she describes her boss as having been a very kind woman who never got mad at her. She recounted a story about an incident in which she dropped a very expensive tea set, and it smashed into a hundred pieces. The boss reassured her it was an accident and didn’t even make her pay for the broken porcelain. My mother has said of the woman, “I wished that she was my mother.”
When my mom told me this story, I almost fell out of my chair. I thought, Whaaat? Grandma Lucy was such a loving, doting grandmother to me, so how is Mom saying she wished someone else was her mom?
My mother went on. “If I had dropped something like that at home and it broke like that, Pau Pau would have pulled my ears and screamed at me.”
Hmmm. As I mulled over this story in my mind and compared it to the grandmother I knew, I couldn’t imagine my pau pau ever pulling my ears or hurting me in any way. She doted on me always; she prepared all my favorite foods, bathed me, and even made mundane trips to the grocery store seem fun. She always made me feel loved. So what did this mean that she didn’t bestow this same affection on my own mother?
Are grandmothers nicer to grandkids because they know they weren’t necessarily stellar parents and are trying to make up for it? Are they taking full advantage of getting a second chance at child rearing?
Or are they guilt-ridden and trying to cover up for past deeds by pretending that they’ve always been sweet as pie? Maybe if they pamper the babies of the previously scorned child, might decades-old sins be forgiven?
Instead of the direct route of just saying sorry, which would require losing face, maybe if the grandmother wins over the heart of the grandchild, she can maintain the position that she is right, and always has been. By doting on the next generation, a grandmother demonstrates, “Look how nice I am, and have always been! If you recall anything different, that’s your problem.” This strategy possesses a built-in mechanism: the adult child will be made to feel like she’s crazy if she claims to remember anything bad about her own childhood. This shell game switcheroo is considered no biggie unless, of course, you are the one being made to feel crazy.
Did any of this unconscious motivation factor into Grandma Lucy’s behavior? Maybe she hoped my mother would forgive and forget that she’d had her ears pulled and was made to feel ugly.
Or perhaps my grandmother simply mellowed with age. I feel guilty and slightly ashamed to even be speculating that anything other than affection compelled her actions. I know Grandma Lucy’s love for me was real. Nonetheless, apparently, this certainty does not squelch my compulsive need to fish through my memories in search of clues.
Now that Grandma Lucy has passed away, and many years separate me from my childhood, I will never know the many subtleties of my mom’s relationship with her own mother. I don’t have too many sharp memories of them together; if we were all in the same room it was because we were at big parties with lots of people around. When I did see my mother and grandmother talking, it was always of practical matters, and half the time in Chinese. Mostly, though, it hadn’t occurred to me then to pay any attention to the way they interacted.
I liked being alone with my grandmother best, just the two of us. We often found ourselves solely in each other’s company because my grandfather, parents, and older brothers were always busy doing other things. I was too young to be stirring up trouble with my own friends just yet, and she seemed to enjoy quiet evenings when she wasn’t playing mah-jongg.
However, I do recall that my grandma Lucy used to say insidious, disparaging things to me about my mom. While Grandma Lucy and I ate Chinese dishes that she had prepared fresh and piping hot, she would make comments such as “Your ma never cook Chinese food,” and “She only give you cold thing like sandwich.” My grandmother would speak with obvious disdain and disapproval. I knew not to disagree with her, even though I knew there was nothing wrong with how we ate at home.
In retrospect, I wonder if this was Grandma Lucy’s way of bonding with me. Once again using a distorted logic, maybe my grandmother bad-mouthed my mom to me so that we could feel separate from her and thereby somehow closer to each other as grandmother and granddaughter. Perhaps these statements were a way of saying, “Stick with me because I know how to love you best,” or “Whatever happens, don’t forget me.” Maybe with age, a grandmother feels closer to her own mortality. Hence, she does what she can to ensure that she is cherished, and remembered.
I recognize this dynamic because now a similar pattern plays out with my own mom and daughter. While I know full well that my mother used to comb my hair with ferocious, painful zeal, she is gentle with Lucy. When my daughter was younger, my mom was always careful in helping her with her socks and shoes, and I’ve witnessed none of the rough tugging on of clothes and heard none of the sharp tones of voice that had been the norm for me.
My mother and Lucy don’t see each other on a daily basis, and of course, it is in rushing to school, doing difficult homework, and when everyone’s tired that frustration and bickering are most likely to erupt. So maybe it’s the schedule of their mostly weekend and vacation time together that contributes to their more easygoing interactions.
But that can’t be everything. Granted, my mother is retired now and her life is about ten times less hectic than it ever was when she was working full-time and taking care of three kids. For whatever combination of reasons, she is more patient and kind than she was with me when I was Lucy’s age. I am not jealous, just simply damn glad.
However. (There is always a however, right?)
There are signs of the same kind of conspiratorial conversation between my mom and Lucy that occurred between Grandma Lucy and me. My mom, to my knowledge, doesn’t bag on my cooking, but there are other things.
For instance, a few years ago, my parents took Lucy on an overnight trip to the coast. A few days after they returned, Lucy and I were sitting on the couch playing with her favorite bear, Pinky, and as she clutched the soft toy to her chest, she placed her head on my lap and said, “Why does Pau Pau think you’re lazy?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. Lucy sat up and stared at Pinky, who was faded, well loved, and so worn and soft that the plush, fake fur was looking as if it might rip at any time. One tumble in the washing machine could be the end of her.
“Well, Pau Pau was looking at Pinky. She asked me why she was so dirty. When I said I
didn’t know, she said it was because you’re lazy and you don’t wash her.”
“Really, she said that?”
“I don’t want you to wash her! Don’t wash Pinky, okay? Pau Pau says you’re lazy, but you’re not lazy. You’re doing stuff all the time. Why does she say things like that?”
“I don’t know.”
A little while later, I phoned my mom and called her on the mat.
“Hello?”
“Did you tell Lucy that I’m lazy because I didn’t wash her stuffed animal?”
“No, I never said that.”
“Well, Lucy wouldn’t lie about that. And she doesn’t want it washed. Why would you tell her I’m lazy? Now she just thinks you’re a liar.”
That part about my mom being a liar was kind of harsh, I know, but I was mad. Why would she criticize me to my own kid? We went back and forth a few times, but my mom continued to deny that she had told my daughter that I was lazy. We hung up the phone without resolution.
Maybe a grandmother feels like she has to vie for the attention of the grandchild. Maybe these little digs are the only way to express simmering envy that daughters have more opportunities for jobs or love, or are younger and have numerous other advantages. Maybe a fine line exists between all the conflicting emotions that arise: you want your kid to succeed, but not too much, or you want her to have a life full of love, but if it seems that she has it all too easy, that burns you.
Perhaps, as an individual, the grandmother feels underappreciated. Or maybe she is secretly afraid that her value is slipping in the eyes of the next generation, and she must bolster up her own reputation. As if I didn’t already know it, Grandma Lucy would often exclaim to me, “My soup is the best!” These pronouncements would even sometimes be made in the third person, as if someone else were affirming these truths. “Pau Pau’s tong mien is the best!” she would say. She needed me to physically nod and agree although, as previously noted, my own mother never cooked Chinese food, so the comparison was already a victory by default. Nonetheless, when it came to declaring superiority, just like a Chinese person, with Grandma Lucy there was no such thing as gilding the lily.
For her entire life, my own mother hasn’t ever been lazy. It’s true that she never had a time in her life where she had the luxury of acting, being, or doing anything frivolously. By comparison, I did have free time. I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy college, work friends, and several kid-free years of marriage. But that doesn’t make me lazy, for heaven’s sake.
I know that my mother is happy for me. And yet. There have always been little comments here and there, such as “Rolf is such a hard worker,” and “Rolf is so good at cleaning.” These compliments serve the alternate purpose of insinuating that I am neither a hard worker nor good at cleaning. My mom also tells my husband, “She’s so lucky she found you.”
Ah, there’s that Chinese adherence to the concept of “luck.” I could enumerate all the difficulties, setbacks, false starts, and hard times my husband and I have worked through that are certainly not just simply luck. We have both worked hard, and neither of us is lazy. But here we are. Under the umbrella of Luck, in one fell swoop all our collective efforts, painstaking struggles, anguish, and hard-earned accomplishments can be disregarded by a Tiger Mom.
Maybe I need to compliment my mother more. I don’t know. We all want to feel more appreciated, and more loved. That wish doesn’t diminish, no matter what one’s age is. Everyone wants and needs more compliments and praise whether she is two, nine, twenty, forty, or seventy years old. I don’t mind giving sincere recognition to my loved ones.
Thanks, Mom. You’ve done a great job and continue to do so. But please do not disparage me to my own daughter.
You are not ugly. I am not lazy. And for goodness’ sake, please do not wash Pinky.
32
Before You Vanish Out of View
I recently went back to San Francisco for the holidays. For dinner we had a culinary mash-up of cultures: sushi appetizers, a huge turkey stuffed with Chinese sticky rice, prawns with Vietnamese hot sauce, a sautéed veggie medley with siew choy, black mushrooms, and pea pods. No one knew what to buy anyone for Christmas so we all exchanged Nordstrom gift cards.
After eating, we did what I suppose many families in the United States do, we passed out on the sofa and watched The Godfather trilogy on whatever channel was playing it. Knowing all the dialogue in these movies took the place of actual talking, but strangely enough, sharing the familiar lines had its own kind of intimacy. I watched Vito Corleone as a boy at Ellis Island and thought of my own grandfather Lemuel Jen at Angel Island as a child. I’d seen this movie so many times that whenever I tried to imagine my grandfather’s arrival in America, all I ever pictured was this scene from this movie.
My parents, siblings, and our spouses all sat around, eating a little more, and grazing over dessert. We were all lost in our own thoughts as we rested there, not talking.
After helping with the dishes and saying good night to everyone, it was suddenly 11:30 P.M. in San Francisco. I got ready for bed as a visitor in my parents’ house, as a guest in my childhood bedroom. The night sky was clear with a few white, puffy clouds. I could smell the trees in Golden Gate Park even though I had a cold. It was more that I could feel the smells and sounds in the way a blind person can see just fine. Like a forked branch divining water, I felt San Francisco reverberating in my bones.
I was shaking like that. Shaking with the colors and patterns, the paisleys and toiles, the fragrances natural or manufactured, the rough touches and smooth caresses of the spirit of the city. I could hear the urban whispers through the airplane-head of my cold.
Was that how you were luring me back, San Francisco, by getting into my head? I imagined a conversation between us:
Come back to me.
I will, Mom, but you’ve got to stop suffocating me.
I almost got to you with that thick aroma of éclairs and pastries from Tartine, didn’t I?
Yes. I’m a nervous wreck when I’m living with you. You have too much power over me and your embrace crushes my bones.
But I don’t crush your spirit, do I?
No, never.
Then get back here. Now.
That wasn’t too subtle. What about finesse?
You’re just being a brat. Come home.
Not yet. Let me admire you, San Fran, from this short distance. Remember how I used to be so nearsighted? Now I’m farsighted, and the only way I can really see you is if I hold you at arm’s length, like a book.
And you wonder why you’re so lonely, kid.
I know it’s my own fault.
I’m the one with fault lines.
No, San Francisco, those are laugh lines.
Dear city, you are my Underdog secret energy pill. My photographic memory is turned on like a spotlight. I can’t help but bank every image, every step across the marble floor of the Veterans Building or City Hall, the glitter silica in the downtown squares of pavement. In my mind’s eye I can see the destroyed Chinatown that the current Chinatown is paved over. I see the ghost-gone Victorians behind the ’60s-era office buildings. I remember the old places that were barely standing in the backdrops of The Streets of San Francisco.
Seeing these city apparitions takes a certain clairvoyance, and San Franciscans often perceive the images of the past with the mysterious vision of a third eye, like on the pyramid on the back of the one-dollar bill. Their ears are attuned to hear confessions in what’s not said. As for their sense of smell and memory, the purpose of perfume, after all, is to disguise odors, so what lingers after the floral notes have evaporated? In the wind off the ocean, the old smells can still be a revelation when one suddenly catches a whiff again. You might get a subtle, new-grass smell or the aroma of baked goods from a nearby bakery. I remember the pungent coffee smell from the Hills Bros. Coffee Building, and recall breathing in a hint of grape soda when we drove by the Shasta factory in the East Bay.
I feel you, San
Francisco. I can hear you buzzing in my ear like a honeybee, humming your site-specific tune in my head. It’s eerie, melodic, jaunty, and dolorous all in one. Layered in your city sounds are tickling ivories, a low bassoon, a bossa nova beat, and strings. There’s that one part with the children’s choir singing, “You can’t always get what you want,” a harpsichord, a dulcimer, and glockenspiels played by those St. Mary’s Chinese girls with the pom-pommed headdresses and silk cheongsams. A harmonica is joined by a kazoo and a Good & Plenty box. There are spoons dragged across an old-fashioned washboard, accompanied by a slide guitar and violins. There are even drums from Hippie Hill, foghorns, and always, the backbeat of the Pacific Ocean crashing against Seal Rock, and a familiar, haunting wail by the Mermen.
That’s how SF sounded that Christmas night. I could hear the city in my head, between my ears as I drifted off to sleep above Haight Street, near the rainbow flag, just across Twin Peaks, on the sternum of the Indian Maiden.
33
Scrambling Past the Dahlias
The next day, Rolf, Lucy, and I decided to extend our visit, so along with my parents, we took a drive to the town where my dad was born—Watsonville, California. I wanted to visit my relatives there and to see the old house in which my dad grew up, where I’d spent several summers as a kid. I wanted to find out which emotions this place might evoke that my rational brain was blocking out. I hoped for the opportunity to have some revelation about my family and my beginnings, although I was unsure what I’d find.
The trip started out with my whole family in the car, which I knew was a bad idea, but I couldn’t talk my way out of it. My dad was in the driver’s seat, which I suppose was fitting since he was taking us to his hometown, and he was the one who best knew the way. Rolf was in the front passenger’s seat, and my mom, Lucy, and I sat in the back. We made it past San Mateo before the bickering, second-guessing, and chitchat about the 49ers started to get to me. My left butt cheek that was slanted sideways in the cramped backseat of the Honda began to spasm. With steadily increasing volume, my mom bragged about yet another family friend’s kid whom I didn’t know. I desperately pressed the button to open the window for some air, but my dad had the child safety mechanism in place.
Tiger Babies Strike Back Page 16