Tiger Babies Strike Back (15 page)

But what I hadn't counted on was that these Asian moms apparently couldn't stand to be doing nothing. And by nothing I mean being mentally present as toddlers all around us drooled and spaced out. They both seemed horrified at the pointlessness of singing songs when the time could have been more effectively used to check in at their respective offices via phone. I watched from a short distance as they each directed focused intensity on their devices and their kids sat like well-dressed lumps on the mats. I wondered, why bother coming to a tiny tots playgroup at all if you're not going to even pretend to spend time with your kid?

With these Asian moms whom I failed to connect with, I definitely got the impression that associating with others here in our modest parks and rec building might risk throwing off their schedules. They each stayed only for exactly twenty-five minutes, then efficiently packed up their strollers and offspring and went off to their kids' next activities. Having once asked each separately where they were off to, I received the curt replies, “Karate and Kid Yoga,” and “Level Two Gymnastics and Ballet with Miss Tilly.”

I particularly noted the one woman's need to denote “Level Two,” lest I mistakenly assume that her kid, who was shorter than the length of my arm, was only a lowly tumbler. In addition, Level Two mom then caught a glimpse of Lucy playing with a leaf and rolled her eyes at me. She grabbed her kid's wrist and pulled her away from us just in case her own daughter might get any bright ideas about remedial leaf exploring, as if that would forever doom her to an entry-level job in the food industry. I just shrugged it off. I'm not one of those moms who thinks getting into Harvard depends on early enrollment in preschool Pilates.

Over time, I did slowly find other mothers with sensibilities similar to my own. The conversations came easily, and we talked about the mundane things that were now a part of our daily lives: making noodles, washing underwear, mopping floors, fighting about boogers, and dirty hair. We laughed about how our brains were turning to mush, but we bolstered one another's morale with adult cynicism while we discussed various toddler TV shows:

“Which guy do you like better on
Blue's Clues
, Steve or Joe?”

“I can't decide between the pinhead or the one who just looks like a mouth-breathing masturbator.”

“Bert or Ernie?”

“They're both gay, of course. Hiding together under the Q for Quilt, reading a book, with a big Q for Queen. Ernie, stop spraying me with that hose! ‘Doing the Pigeon' sounds like a song Bert learned in San Quentin.”

“The Care Bear stare is like spray-on Ritalin—wish I had some of that.”

“When Big Bird sings about adoring the number four, does he say ‘crashing bores,' or ‘trashy whores'?”

I can't imagine that Tiger Moms allow themselves the closeness that results from sharing, because to do so, they'd have to let their hair down. Friendship with other moms comes from admitting mistakes, revealing messy truths, and laughing so hard that you kind of pee your pants a little.

And how can a woman do that if she's still striking that impossible pose of perfection? One-upmanship, comparing your kids' accomplishments, and securing your bragging rights or moral high ground do not bring people closer to you. Those hallmarks of Tiger Moms only serve to keep everyone at arm's length. Ultimately, it's a recipe for even more loneliness.

During Lucy's baby and toddler years, I was glad to have met those few women who helped me feel less alone. Some moms were stricter than others, and we didn't agree on everything, but we enjoyed one another's company without having to feel competitive, which felt good.

That was several years ago now. Back then, I was just starting to find camaraderie, and more surprising, I was getting along pretty well with my very own mother. Nonetheless, in the near distance, or maybe just inside me, a storm was brewing.

19

I always suspected there were pitfalls to being a high-achieving Chinese American, but the severity of the dangers really shook me to the core when Iris Chang shot and killed herself.

Iris Chang was a Chinese American writer who was my age and also had a child around the same time my daughter was born. She lived in San Jose, which is very close to San Francisco, so when I saw the headline “Local Chinese American author, 36, found dead of self-inflicted gunshot,” for a split second I thought,
Oh, hell, am I dead?

I stared at the wall, and for a good twenty seconds I pondered the possibility that I might be one of those confused ghosts haunting my own house because I didn't realize I was dead. After poking myself in the leg with a pencil and ascertaining that I was still living in the flesh, I went on to read the devastating news about Chang, a brilliant star whose light was extinguished on an early November morning.

By all accounts, she was the ultimate go-getter, convincing the
New York Times
to let her be a stringer in the Champaign-Urbana area of Illinois when she was still in college. Other students envied her ambition and success, and the author Paula Kamen even described Chang's gumption as a verb, telling her students who longed to accomplish something to just “Iris Chang it.”

Chang wrote three books,
The Thread of the Silkworm
,
The
Rape of Nanking
, and
The Chinese in America
. They were all books that any Chinese parent would be proud of. They were scholarly works with no F-bombs, or scenes describing crapping your pants, or plotlines with an underaged Lolita watching a guy spank his monkey. Those classy bits were the cornerstones of my novels. Part of me would've loved to be Iris Chang, but for the most part I knew that Iris had a gift for elegance, while my specialty, apparently, was sweet, lowbrow profanity.

I'm just gonna start referring to her as Iris now, because it feels like we were friends. With each book that she produced, I felt pangs of jealousy. I would take particular notice whenever her name appeared in the news. Ah, look at her shining face, standing there with Bill Clinton. Oh, look, there's her name on the top of the bestsellers list. Gee, look, they're erecting a statue of her in the city of Nanking, China.

It was a friendly envy because I wholeheartedly admired her bravery and her writing, and how she reached back into history to shed a spotlight on the atrocities against the Chinese during World War II. My own grandma Lucy had fled Japanese bombs in China, and she had told her heartbreaking, horrifying stories to me as Chang's grandparents had also done with Iris, so
The Rape of Nanking
was especially meaningful to me. And now Iris was dead.

Damn! I always thought Iris and I would have met up somewhere, like at a conference or panel at the library. I had looked forward to the day when I might gush at her like a swooning fan, and we might be able to swap stories about balancing the writing life with raising a kid.

But none of that would be happening. One early morning, Iris left her bed and got in her car to drive a short distance from home to inflict a single gunshot to her own supersmart, beautiful head. All that gorgeous hair, creamy skin, and pretty face I imagined splattered in her own blood on the car seat.

Although she was a stranger to me, it felt like a stab in the heart.

Oh, what if we
had
been friends? Could an acknowledgment of mutual, separate loneliness have made any difference at all? Or maybe a competition between us would have made things that much worse.

I fantasize about how just one association, one person, one more ally could have changed the outcome for Iris. I know this after-the-fact speculating is unrealistic, futile, and perhaps pompous of me, but I imagine the various scenarios still.

Was it really that bad? Couldn't she walk away from her responsibilities, or move to Tahiti? No way. No, no, no. Of course not. Apparently, that's not how Iris Chang rolled. She was the superachieving firstborn child of two superachieving parents (they are both scientists), and when you throw in that Chinese thing . . . well.

Many reasons and speculations abound for what ended Iris Chang—depression, bipolar disorder, her deep empathy for the victims she wrote about, and other theories. The
San Francisco Chronicle Magazine
wrote a cover story about her, detailing her achievements and her last days and funeral. The article described her husband taking her to Fresh Choice for their wedding anniversary, how she would work nonstop for days, and how she regularly exhausted herself completely.

I read and reread this story and have even saved it all these years, still flipping through it from time to time. I'm not sure how to feel about Iris Chang, her accomplishments, and her death. There's the sickness I feel over her tragic end, and then there are the details we had in common that add a macabre quality. Mostly, though, what pained me and troubles me still about her death is that she was someone I looked up to, who gave me hope and a little bit more courage. I had considered her a better, more respectable version of myself. When someone whom you've always admired can't stand the heat in the kitchen and decides to off herself, what are you supposed to do?

I think about Iris Chang all the time. When I'm tired, when I want to stop writing altogether, or when I need a pep talk, I consider all the ways in which Iris could've been easier on herself. Since I didn't know her personally, I have no firsthand knowledge of her foibles, her intensity, or her work habits. Her being gone and my being alive to wipe up baby barf and write books about interracial dating and preteen, smutty high jinks seemed unfair.

Sometimes when I want to give up everything and not get out of bed, I think of Iris. Not because she would've definitely gotten out of bed, but because I can. I have a chance to write about all these things that happen to me, and somewhere there's someone whom I may never meet and she is reading my books. Maybe my words can make her feel better, or inspire her to be the next writer who makes a difference. We all keep passing the baton to the next person who can tell the truth, and that humble continuity is what we'll need to break apart the abstract wall of Chinese silence that keeps us separate, each alone within ourselves.

20

I knew it was time to leave San Francisco when the police shot and killed the tiger at the city zoo. We'd been going there three times a week for the past four years and had just visited the tiger's grotto that very same morning. Lucy and I had spent her early childhood watching Tatiana pace her enclosure. We had crouched dozens of times behind the thick Plexiglas and quivered as she meandered by, six inches away with those white whiskers and clear yellow-green eyes. And now she had died in a hail of bullets on Christmas Day.