Tiger Babies Strike Back (26 page)

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

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

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.

“I need to open the window!”

“What for?”

“Because I need air.”

“I'll just turn on the vent.”

“Can you please just press the button that unlocks the back window?”

“Hold on. The vent is on low. Can you feel it?”

“No. Can I please just open the window?”

“I'll turn the vent on medium.”

“Please just let me open the window.”

“You'll feel the vent any second.”

Sweltering and breathing recirculated air, I reverted, once again, to pretending I was dead. The sound track to my lifelong passive captivity was the same as it ever was, Mathis and Sinatra. I didn't care for this music, but to my parents the songs were just so good. Timeless. As our separate energies shifted and settled down to their lowest common denominator, my mom changed the subject of conversation to
Dancing with the Stars
, while I continued my corpse-in-the-car routine. I embodied the collective soul sickness of adult children in backseats everywhere. There was no escape. And I knew it. We all knew it. The steamy aroma of to-go dim sum packed into Styrofoam containers next to my feet permeated the locked-window interior. My parents bickered over who was the best dancer last night. Rolf stared out the window, and Lucy wailed that she was sooooo bored. She began to kick in her seat. Oh, how peaceful it was to be dead.

After a while I couldn't take it. Lucy was becoming further agitated, so I dug around in my bag for a stuffed animal. I only had one, and it was a “Honker” from
Sesame Street
, which is a lesser-known category of Muppet who communicates only by honking his bulbous orange nose or tooting the little horns next to his ears.

“Here, take him,” I said to Lucy.

She stopped kicking and hugged the Honker.

“What's his name?”