Voices on the New Diasporas - an MIT student journal
Submission deadline for Spring 2008 issue is March 15, 2008.
Copyright Notices
The works displayed on MIT's E-merging Journal are protected by copyright and other applicable laws and are made available by MIT's E-merging Journal for use by you, the individual accessing the E-merging Journal, solely for your own educational, non-commercial, non-monetary purposes provided you credit the author(s) identified on the particular work(s) and the MIT E-merging Journal for the material you use.
These works may be viewed on-line, downloaded, copied, distributed and displayed by you for your own educational, noncommercial purposes, or the URL of a document (from this server) included in another electronic document; however, the text of a work may not be published commercially (in print or electronically), edited or otherwise altered.
This is a summary of the license terms to you, the full text of which is available - Legal Notices.
Hey, American Girl!
by Kelly Kuo, Class of 2006
I'm tired of MIT, tired of studying all the time, tired of Boston and its eternally gray skies. But as usual, after exactly four days of being home, I'm dying to return. Wandering restlessly from room to room, I collapse onto my parents' bed‒ my mom's bed, actually, since her recent foot surgery-- and stare at the ceiling, then roll over to stare at the floor. Under the bed, a plastic bag within another plastic bag draws my attention. After laboriously unknotting the stiff ties, I find myself rifling through old photographs, most of which are from Taiwan. The pictures are stuffed into yellowed envelopes, never having made it into an album or frame. As the small piles of envelopes and loose pictures begin to spread over the bed, it occurs to me that, aside from my brother's and my high school senior portraits, there's only one framed picture in our house: a family portrait from 1992, in which I'm wearing a red snowman shirt and matching red sweatpants, proudly displaying my self-styled hairdo. I discreetly blocked it from view years ago. But the faded box I hold now contains images I've never seen before, and I wonder, not for the first time, at the absence or invisibility of these memories in our house. My parents' lives in Taiwan, and even their early years in the U.S., remain their own silent history. But in my own room, colorful scrapbooks and photo albums from high school line shelves bursting with the treasures and paraphernalia of childhood. I still keep all my old journals, as embarrassing as they are to read a decade later, because I've always been afraid of forgetting-- forgetting who I once was, what I once hoped for, what I longed to become.
One old photograph makes me pause. The seconds tick by audibly, and I still don't move. In this picture, my mother is walking arm-in-arm with two girlfriends, laughing against a background of autumn leaves. The colors are surprisingly vivid despite the grainy paper. She's in college, about my age, and beautiful. The first thing I notice is her clothing: so elegantly modern that it appears anachronistic. Then I remember that fashion trends do repeat themselves, and they apparently spread from the U.S. to Taiwan as well. But my mother, in such high heels? In an outfit I would wear today? I can't get over it. Usually she rotates between a few ancient sweaters, refusing to buy new ones: "If you were a homeless person in Antarctica, you would just be thankful you had clothes at all." I like to tease her about the blindingly orange and blue sweater she wears today. On the front, a Snoopy look-alike stands on block letters that read, "HAPPY DOG CLUB." Still holding the picture, I laugh delightedly at this new image of my mom, who evidently was not always so practical. I ask her silently, who are these two women? When have I ever seen you so carefree? Looking at my mother in her American clothes, it occurs to me that this merging of two cultures had begun long before I, her "American" child, was born. I gaze at her young face, and realize that I do not know my mother.
When I was young, when it would rain particularly hard, I sometimes caught her standing alone in the dark, staring out the sliding doors by the patio. Instinctively, I knew she was thinking of the family and life she'd left behind. These memories didn't include me, and yet I stood watch with her anyway, imagining I could feel the weight of the past.
Taiwan was an exotic and mysterious homeland to me, half fable, half inherited memory. I was seven years old the first summer we went back, and I believed only that my relatives would adore me and praise me over my brother. As soon as we stepped out of the air-conditioned airport, however, the heavy, sulfurous mixture of pollution and humidity lodged in my throat, and I covered my mouth all the way to the car. I made one social blunder after another, also informing First Uncle that he was shortening our lives with his secondhand cigarette smoke. Every day, my mother scolded me fiercely for my rudeness, but I had no idea how to act in this country that was and wasn't my home. My older cousins mistook my shyness for arrogance, and I had soon earned the nickname of "Hey, American girl!" I was the only one bitten daily by mosquitoes, and my hair was dark brown instead of black, they told me, because I was a wai guo ren, a foreigner. When we visited again two years later, my relatives either spoke to me through my brother ("Is your sister tired?"), or responded to me in broken English ("You…watermelon. Eat? Uncle… no smoking!"), even when I reminded them in Mandarin that I could speak Chinese. Abandoned even by my brother, I took refuge in my isolated American-ness. I hated, absolutely hated Taiwan, and vowed never to go back. All the same, as I grew older I never questioned my identity as being "Chinese-American," or simply "Chinese." My limited knowledge of Chinese history and culture had been gathered mainly from martial-arts movies, bad soap operas, and Chinese school on Saturdays (during which my classmates and I all spoke in English). Despite my ignorance, these perceived ties to an island I hated were reinforced by my father's constant lecturing on the Chinese "struggle" in America. This was the speech‒ always delivered in the same righteous tones, with the same emphatic gestures -- that was drummed into my memory: that, as a Chinese girl (my gender being a double blow), I needed to understand that nothing in this country was fair, that everything came down to competition. For my own sake, he had to harden me, push me to be the fastest, the smartest, and the best in everything I did‒ then, only then, could I ever hope to surmount prejudice and inequality. I told my father that I had never felt like an outsider here, that I didn't share his cynical view of the world. He told me I was blind. I learned to shut my ears while pretending to listen, holding onto my confidence in my ability to straddle two cultures, my belief that I could someday be embraced by both worlds.
Looking back on high school, it seems that I argued with him every day, in my usual mixture of English and Mandarin. During one particularly bad night, he flung down my books and roared: "Speak Chinese!" I dug my fingernails into my palms, longing to strike back for once. "You moved to this country," I spat. "You speak English." We fought constantly over everything: my refusal to study eight hours a day for the PSAT, to go to medical school, to acknowledge his greater wisdom and experience. To him, my rebellion was the outward expression of my "wildness," or the American corruption of my mind. I had always been independent, but now I deliberately isolated myself from my family. My brother was already away at college, and all of my pent-up frustration was focused on escaping as well, preferably to a school far, far away. I jumped into the shower as soon as my father came home every night, and I took my time, steeling myself in case I actually had to speak to him. He became only a symbol of stress and fear, as memories of a happier relationship faded from my mind. I saw my mother as an ineffectual ally, distressed by my tears but unable to stop them. As I shut myself in my room, she faded from my life as well, becoming only the source of my meals. But when I argued and pleaded for them to let me go to MIT, I fell silent before the unexpected accusation of her words: "All you want is to get away from us, isn't it?" It was true; I was willing to abandon them all.
Somehow, sometime during that first year on my own, things slowly and imperceptibly began to change. After swearing to myself that I'd never be homesick, I was astounded and almost angry to discover that I was. As I walked back to my room one night, smiling up at the thick snowflakes coming down, I realized that all my old anger and bitterness had faded, leaving only a curious emotion I couldn't quite place. Was it forgiveness, acceptance, or merely a willingness to forget? To my amazement, one of my friends talked to his parents every day. I was slightly ashamed to admit that I rarely called home; it was usually my mom that called me once a week, but I kept our conversations brief and simple, reciting a list of p-sets to do, exams to study for.
By sophomore year, I had decided to concentrate in East Asian Studies. It seemed like the easiest thing to do. And after all, I did consider myself to be Chinese, so why not learn more about Chinese history, culture, and language? But in exploring my own cultural identity, I found myself searching for a hint of my parents in these ancient teachings, these stories of revolutions and uprisings. I found myself searching for an explanation of who they were now, what burdens of history and choice and memory they might have carried.
Lesson #4 from my 21F.107 (Chinese I streamlined) textbook: "Americans learning Chinese."
Daughter: Ma, today was registration day, I chose a Chinese language class.
Mother: What?! You chose a Chinese language class?
Daughter: Yes, I chose a Chinese language class.
Mother: Didn't you always hate learning Chinese?
The daughter goes on to explain that no, she only hated being pushed so hard. And, with China's economy booming, many people in America (and England, France, and Japan!) are learning to speak Chinese too!
I called my mother. "Mom, guess what, I'm going to take Chinese this semester."
"Shem.me?! What?! After all that money I paid for Chinese school, which you quit?"
"Yes, well, um…" I paused, then quickly flipped my book open to lesson #4. "Actually, when I was young I didn't hate Chinese, I just didn't like how you pushed me so hard to learn," I recited carefully in Mandarin. A few unfamiliar words came out awkwardly. "Now that no one's pushing me, I finally want to learn Chinese. Plus, the economy…"
"Ok," said my mother, sounding doubtful. "Call me when you need help."
There turned out to be daily writing assignments for that class, and so it turned out that I called home nearly every night. I would read her my rough essays, and she would be amused by my "strange Chinese." Each night, I wrote out the revised sentences she painstakingly dictated. She laughed, telling me that her English was better than my Mandarin, and I agreed, humbled and grateful. One night, she casually asked: "Have you met any nice boys at school?" Caught completely off guard, I agreed to tell her if and when I did. My mother was trying to bond with me, I realized, and it made me very nervous. Looking back now, I think she was trying to push beyond the silences and superficial details that had served as a barrier for so long. She was reaching out to me, even before I was ready to acknowledge the gap that existed between us.
My mom is cutting my hair for me now, with her bad foot propped up on a stool. As usual, I'm paranoid that she'll cut my hair too short, then announce that it's crooked, snip some more, announce that it's crooked again, and keep snipping until it's even shorter. "Hnnnh!" She makes a face. "If you get it cut in Boston , they'll charge you $30, maybe more. See, your mom does it for free. I'm so nice." The white bathroom floor is covered with my hair, and I like how the sunlight plays about the tiles, illuminating the strands of dark brown to red. As if reading my thoughts, she tells me: "When you were born, I said to myself, 'Aiya, why is her hair brown?' And you were so wrinkly; you looked like the president of Taiwan, only in a dress."
"I did?" I laugh. "How awesome."
"But now it's fashionable to have brown hair. With highlights too, like all the Korean soap opera stars. Maybe I should start dyeing your dad's hair brown instead of black."
We're finished now. Just as I begin sweeping the bathroom floor, my dad comes in to brush his teeth. I fight the old, familiar urge to escape, but he's humming, oblivious to my unease. I can sense something fragile hanging in the air, something curiously delicate surrounding us. It surprises me, this new peace in our house, and I'm afraid it might shatter if I so much as mention it. I feel as if I'm constantly tiptoeing around, holding my breath, but no one else seems to notice. I lie in bed, and wonder: have my parents mellowed, or am I the only one who's changed?
I wake up to the sound of my mom yelling downstairs in Taiwanese. I have never been able to figure it out: either the long-distance connection isn't very good, or my mom is going deaf from using her monstrously loud vacuum, or Taiwanese people are just loud, period. She tells me that First Uncle is on the phone. She tries to hand me the phone; I try to run away. She shoves it into my hand, ignoring my frantic attempts to give it back. I bellow in Mandarin, "Ni hao, da jiu jiu. Xing nian kuai le. Hi, First Uncle. Happy New Year."
"Ehh, Happy. Happy New Year. You…MIT. Uncle…no smoking," he yells in English.
I can't understand anything he says after that, so I give the phone back to my mom. Later, she tells me that my relatives always ask about me, wanting to know if I need anything: green tea candy, eleven pairs of pantyhose, a set of really sharp knives? "Really? Why?" I ask suspiciously.
"Because they care about you," she answers, surprised.
A few nights later, I show my mother the old photograph. I've held on to it, without really knowing why. When I admit that I like her outfit in the picture, she's just as amazed as I am. "That coat was borrowed from First Uncle's wife," she smiles, slowly remembering. "And believe it or not, your First Uncle used to be very handsome. Don't look at his bald head and missing teeth now." She laughs girlishly, suddenly appearing years younger. I adjust my mother's pillow for her, and prop up her foot. I sit quietly as she begins to reminisce, spinning stories both old and new. She tells me of how she and my Third Aunt herded goats and ducks together as children, and how my grandmother once carried her for miles to see a doctor when she had a fever. She tells me of the time First Uncle summoned all their brothers and sisters together (seven of them, in all), and ordered each one to contribute a monthly sum of money so that my mother, the youngest child, could be the first to go to college. My mother, who makes amazing food, tells me that she didn't learn how to cook until she came to the U.S. She remembers standing in the grocery store, looking for the vegetables my grandmother often cooked, trying to remember what she added to her dishes, how her food smelled. She tells me ordinary tales of ordinary people, but they're my stories too, and I find them remarkable.
She talks and talks until we're both half asleep. I ask her where our family had originally come from. She tells me that a few hundred years ago, our ancestors had probably been farmers in China's Henan province. I ask her if she can recite a genealogy, but she can only give the names of her parents and grandparents. She promises to ask First Uncle, who might be able to go back further. Half-jokingly, I tell my mother that she should write down our family history, and she laughs. I wouldn't be able to read half the characters anyway, she says, and so all I can do is remember. But I know this already. I have to pass down these memories as best as I can to my own daughters, and to my granddaughters, who may or may not find them as compelling as I do. I have to remind them of all the sacrifices that have been made, of all the lives and loves gone by, of all the disappointments and hopes carried through the generations, across the ocean, to them.
