Fresh Off the Boat (7 page)

I hated Michael Jordan with a passion. I was a Barkley and Ewing and later on Chris Webber or AI fan, all day. But Jordan could jump over a backboard and was on his way to six rings, so it went without saying that he had the best technology in his shoes. The Jordans were packaged with these cards that would tell you about the materials with a level of seriousness that matched the Manhattan Project. Whether it was Spike’s, Mars’s, Phil’s (Knight), or Jordan’s fault I can’t say, but we swore we could jump higher with J’s. They were a rite of passage. I remember when my friends got Jordans we’d lower the hoop to seven feet and try to dunk. Every ten-year-old back then thought you needed the Jordans if you were gonna yam it someday. The shoes were literally your hopes and dreams in a box. My mom took one look at the shoes and she knew, too.

“Hmm, that’s a pretty shoe.”

“It looks expensive,” my father said.

“Dad, it’s an investment! I can go to the NBA if you buy me these!”

“Ha, ha, man, you suck at basketball!”

“That’s because you buy me shitty shoes!”

“No, it’s because you’re fat!”

I saw a sales rep standing around in the store so I asked him for a pair of size 7 Jordan Vs, but before he went off to the back, my dad had a question.

“How much are these shoes?”

Before it even started, it was over.

“A hundred dollars! No, no, no, no, no, that’s too expensive.”

“Dad, just let me try them on, you’ll see, they’re worth it!”

Of course, Emery had to chime in.

“A hundred dollars is crazy! We never buy anything for a hundred dollars!”

“Shut up, Emery!”

“Hey! Don’t yell at your brother, now you definitely aren’t getting those shoes!”

The sales rep didn’t move. There would be no Jordan Vs that day. I didn’t even get to try them on. But my dad walked over to the wall of shoes and found a pair of orange and white Air Force high-tops.

“Who wears these shoes?”

“Charles Barkley! They’re only sixty-five dollars, too,” said the sales rep.

“Hey, you love Charles Barkley, why don’t you try these shoes.”

“Dad, they’re heavy! You can’t jump in those shoes.”

“Eh, these commercials are lies. No shoe is going to make you jump higher when you’re this fat anyway.”

This is how it always went. Before we even had a chance to believe in Santa Claus, my dad told us he was fake. Santa Claus, Jesus, the Tooth Fairy, and Jordan Vs never existed in our house. When I ran in after a touch football triumph and told them I’d play quarterback for the Redskins, they laughed at me. When they beat that dream out of me, I said I’d be a sportscaster on ESPN and I’ll never forget what my father said:

“They’ll never let someone with a face like you on television.”

To this day, I wake up at times, look in the mirror, and just stare, obsessed with the idea that the person I am in my head is something entirely different than what everyone else sees. That the way I look will prevent me from doing the things I want; that there really are sneetches with stars and I’m not one of them. I touch my face, I feel my skin, I check my color every day, and I swear it all feels right. But then someone says something and that sense of security and identity is gone before I know it.

THAT SUMMER, MY
cousin Allen came to visit from Virginia and he had on the new Bo Jacksons. I didn’t understand. We were all the same family, we were all Chinese, why did he have stuff and we didn’t? I don’t think it was money, ’cause at the time, things were starting to come around at Atlantic Bay; Dad always wore nice suits to work but Emery and I wore his old hand-me-downs or Allen’s old stuff that Aunt Beth gave us. Allen was three years older than me so he knew just about everything before I did,
and
he even had a white girlfriend. I really looked up to Allen, but he didn’t like me because when we went to Taco Bell, Aunt Beth would get the family pack of tacos that had half soft tacos and half hard shell. We both liked the hard shells, but I was younger so Aunt Beth made Allen eat the soft ones.

I got to hang out with Allen a lot that summer. He had tons of jokes, made fun of everyone, and had the best cut-downs. Most of the time, he made fun of Emery, Phil, or me, but I didn’t care—he was funny! He showed me my first
Sports Illustrated
Swimsuit Issue with Kathy Ireland in the artificial grass skirt by the artificial pool. One day toward the end of summer, he gave me something. A cassette tape. I put it in my deck, pressed play, and I’ll never forget what came out the speakers.

“This is dedicated to the n!gg@s that was down since day one … [click clack] Welcome to Death Row.”

It was
The Chronic
and, just like when I first spotted the Jordans, life would never be the same again. These rappers on the record talked like my parents when they were fighting, dropping words like “fuck,” “bitch,”
and “shit,” but they had new slang, too, like “eat a dick.” I was all about this Chronic shit and didn’t even know what it was.

“Yo, what is this, man?!?!”

“The Chronic.”

“It sounds like rap, but not rap.”

“It’s rap, but it’s hip-hop.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Hip-hop is that real shit. Rap is just … rap.”

“Word … I like this hip-hop! You got more of it?”

“Yeah,
Doggystyle
comes out soon and I’ll send it to you.”

When I got
Doggystyle
, my dad took it away.

“What is this stuff? These dogs are having sex on the back! Who is this Doggy Dog?”

YOU’RE PROBABLY IMAGINING
my dad as this maladjusted, socially inept FOB who didn’t know what he was saying to me. He was just the opposite. At home, he’d walk around in his underwear and house sandals, but if he had a meeting out came the Jheri curl, gator shoes, and Cartier sunglasses. Dude was a smooth-talkin’ motherfucker, who chose to come with the hammer. I didn’t understand why he had to be such a dick. I didn’t even really have to do anything serious. If I talked back to him, he’d step to me. I never backed down. I’d stand my ground, defend myself. But whether he was wrong or right, it usually ended in an ass-beating.

One time, we went to Busch Gardens. For half the day it was one of the best trips we’d ever been on as a family. We never liked going to Disney because the rides sucked, but Busch Gardens was like Six Flags in Tampa Bay—less about creating worlds around licensed properties and more about riding big-ass roller coasters. I was still crazy high and giddy from riding the Kumba and if there was ever a day I loved my dad, love in the form of sixty-dollar day passes, this was it. But, before that feeling stuck, he took us all into this medieval souvenir shop he found. The shop sold the most fucked-up souvenirs: they had replicas of weapons and torture items. I can’t remember the names of everything, but the one that I’d end
up seeing a lot was a three-foot-long leather whip. My dad saw the shit in a bin, picked it up, and turned to me and Emery:

“This is for the next time you cause trouble!”

It didn’t end there. He kept walking around the store with a wild grin on his face and stopped in front of this hard, heavy, three-foot rubber alligator with skin dotted by sharp points on the scales. The rubber was hard, cold, and flexible. You could hold the head, whip the body back, and just come with it. He copped both. The whip wasn’t so bad. He could get us from a distance with it, but it was light. Nothing more than a belt, really. But that alligator …

To Americans, this may seem sick, but to first- or second-generation Chinese, Korean, Jamaican, Dominican, Puerto Rican immigrants, whatever, if your parents are FOBs, this is just how it is. You don’t talk about it, you can’t escape it, and in a way it humbles you the rest of your life. There’s something about crawling on the floor with your pops tracking you down by whip that grounds you as a human being. The bruises and puncture wounds from the scales of the alligator were clearly excessive, but I didn’t think anything was wrong with my dad hitting us. Emery and I were troublemakers. Just like he was.

The thing my dad’s employees, American friends, and associates didn’t know is that my dad was a motherfucking G in Taiwan. His mother, my grandmother, was the daughter of a county mayor of Hunan in the last dynasty. She lived with us in Florida for a while and ended up hanging on until she was 101 years old. The last memory I have with her is hanging out in the hospital watching George Mason play Florida in the 2006 Final Four. At that point, she couldn’t talk, and had bedsores, but my dad’s family wasn’t the type to be overly somber or pretentious. They were strong, sharp, independent thinkers, especially in comparison to the bougie Taiwanese women on my mom’s side. My grandmother was already over 100. We knew she was old, we knew she wouldn’t be here forever. So we watched the game.

My grandfather was in the Internal Ministry of Taiwan when Chiang Kai-shek first fled China. He spoke seven languages and was from Hunan, just like my grandmother. For those that don’t know, Hunan produces
revolutionaries out of proportion to its size. Mao and General Tso are both Hunan natives, which leads a lot of people to say it’s the food that gives men from Hunan their “fiery” disposition. In Chinese culture, you are what your father is. My mother’s family is from Shandong, but my father’s from Hunan, so I am Hunanese.

Once when I was a kid, I had a meal of Wu Gin Tsang Wan, a spicy pig intestine casserole, with Uncle James, the second brother in my dad’s family. On the lazy Susan on the dining room table, there was this metal bowl sitting on top of a Sterno keeping it hot. Inside the bowl were pig intestines, green onions, garlic, lots of chili oil, and pig’s blood. Wu Gin Tsang Wan is one of my favorite dishes to eat over rice because the flavors—the spice, the herbs, the blood—seep into the rice really well.

“Hey, this little guy really likes the pig intestines, huh?”

“He eats anything. Look how fat he is!”

“Ha, ha, that’s not nice, he’s your son.”

“Like he doesn’t know. When he walks, it looks like he has an air conditioner for an ass.”

I wasn’t fat, they were just dicks. But my dad just loved telling the air conditioner joke and this time I didn’t give a shit, I just kept eating pig intestines. But the Sterno was a little too hot and some pieces weren’t coming loose from the casserole bowl. When I pulled at one piece with my chopsticks, I upset the bowl and a splash of hot chili oil flew into my eye. While I screamed in pain, my uncle pointed at me and laughed.

“Ha, ha, hey, Soosin, xiao Shandong ren yong yan jing ci la jiao!”

Translation: “Hey, Louis, look at the little Shandong kid eating chili with his eye!”

“Ha, ha, wan ba dan.”

Translation: “Son of a bitch.”

ANY TIME WE
had trouble with chilis or hot sauce, they made fun of my mom’s side of the family for being from Shandong. Whenever we lost our tempers, it was attributed to Hunan. I was proud to be a Hunan Ren because my grandfather is one of the most honorable people I’ve ever known.
I met him only once, as a month-old baby, but walked by his portrait and a scroll with his name on it every day on my way to my bedroom. That’s what I love about Chinese homes: you’re never allowed to forget where you came from. My grandfather had a highly respected position with the Internal Ministry involved with distributing land and resources when Chiang first installed his government in Taiwan, but he saw a lot of corruption. These days, many Wai Sheng Ren hold Chiang up high. My mom says that when Chiang died she cried for days, and that for the Chinese people of Taiwan it was like the Kennedy assassination. My dad’s family was very liberal and saw another side. In his mid-thirties, with a promising political career ahead of him, my grandfather retired. He didn’t agree with what was being done to the Taiwanese natives and, with corruption rampant, he felt isolated in the government. When he resigned, of course, it left the whole family broke. There aren’t pensions in developing countries and my grandmother had a gambling problem, so what money they did have was lost over mah-jongg. This is probably the one time I’ll ask you not to laugh at the fact that my family is a walking stereotype.

They all struggled after he retired, but it was worth it to maintain our family honor. Grandma might have liked the tiles a little too much, but she held it down, too. For a woman that came from royalty in Hunan, she stuck it out for my grandfather and took full advantage of the fact that her feet were unbound, courtesy of her foreign-educated brother. From a young age, that single event, my grandmother’s unbinding, taught me to appreciate education and challenge conventions—just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t flip it over, look around, poke at its flaws, and see it for what it is yourself. I mean, damn, if my great-uncle wasn’t a curious motherfucker, my grandma wouldn’t have had feet.

My father was the youngest of the family and although he respected the family, he hated being broke. His older brothers had seen money, had been there when Grandpa was in the government, and understood the transition. Pops, on the other hand, was born into a small-ass house on Yong Kang Jie right by the original Din Tai Fung, which used to sell oil. He didn’t pay attention in school, had horrible grades, and ran his neighborhood with one of the largest Taiwanese gangs. No one in his neighborhood
fucked with him. I remember when I was thirteen, one Christmas Uncle Xiao Hei came to the crib and brought a gift.

“Soosin, it’s been too long.”

“I know, and you’re still dark as hell.”

Xiao Hei means “Little Black.” My dad used to tell us stories about running his crew in Taiwan, but we never understood the full extent until Uncle Xiao Hei came to America. This dude had an ill scar on his face and was as dark as a Samoan. He most likely had to run the streets because Taiwanese look down on people with dark skin. I asked Uncle Xiao Hei how he knew my dad and he turned to me with a crooked smile: “Your dad? I carried his knife.”

Uncle Xiao Hei finished his drink and got up to go to his car. Five minutes later, he came back with a big black bag that looked like a guitar case. He put it on the table for my pops and announced, “Merry Christmas.” My dad tried to hide it, but I could see his eyes widen into a smile. He sent Evan and my mom into the next room, but Emery and I stayed. When Evan and my mom were gone, he closed the door and walked back to the table, rubbing his hands. He unzipped the bag and flipped it open and
pow
: an all-black gun, the biggest one I’d ever seen. Dad used to fuck around while we were watching cartoons and just cock the shit on Emery and me.