Tag Archives: walking down the memory lane

Hello Sweetie. I need to get a grip on reality.

Seeing how I have been on a midlife crisis overdrive…

Yes, I think I may as well come out and admit it to myself. I have been going through some sort of personal crisis ever since I started this blog in 2008. Some sort of late-onset-puberty/rebellious stage sans hyper-libido. *sigh*

For someone who’s 120% sincere and honest when she vomited a post titled With all due respect, I am fucking scared of getting old, and who’s scared out of her wits of turning into some sort of predator, really, the last thing you needed to show her was a show dedicated entirely to time travel and alternate reality, starring a nerdy yet sexy 29-year-old actor and a 49-year-old actress in one of the most romantic star-crossed-lover (literally in so many ways) storyline. [Oh god, don’t you just LOVE the British? This anti-Hollywood-rule pairing would never, ever, have happened in the U.S…]

What if… BEEEPPPP. Not allowed.

*red flashing light* Compartmentalize. Compartmentalize. *red flashing light* *Steel door coming down*

Brain. Shutting down. Nope. We never ever want to go there. Just stop it right now.

Someone that I don’t know particularly well cornered me in the office one day and asked me a very blunt question about my personal life. I laughed. I laugh a lot, I’ve noticed. I explained to her how I am an expert in compartmentalizing my thoughts and emotions. Because that’s how people survive and function in reality, no?

This. Is not a cry for help. I just need to get over it. It’s full moon after all.

It’s amazing how I’ve managed to not mention the thing I have been obsessed with for the past month even once. Moving along…

I have my own time warp right here: Found this mix tape made by a classmate of mine when we were in college. He made several mix tapes for a girl that he was pining for. [Incidentally, like a plague, I now recall at least four other guys were smitten with her at the same time in our senior year. Still can’t figure out why. We’ve all known each other all these years, and all of a sudden, finger snap, they all fell in love with her…] I have no idea whether he’s given her the tapes, but the rest of us swooned over the mix tapes and like the stereotypical “great guy who never gets the girl”, he made a copy for all of us. I wonder what happened to him. I hope he’s well. Whoever he’s with, I hope she’s not having what I’m having…

Compartmentalization. Complete.

 

 

 

Splendid

Hundreds of Taiwanese release sky lanterns on Saturday, January 28, 2012, in New Taipei City, Taiwan. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

Today is the Lantern Festival. I completely forgot about it. It was only when I noticed the headline on The Atlantic, “Chinese Lantern Festival 2012” that I remembered.

Today marks the end of the Chinese New Year.

Looking through the beautiful photos, I wish I could say, “Yup. These remind me of home.”  Of my childhood.

I wish I could say, yup, I am of that beautiful custom and of that exotic tradition.

The truth is?  I grew up in a concrete jungle much like every other cosmopolitan city around the world. Globalization is an overwhelming equalizing force indeed.  The pictures look much better than what I remembered of Lantern Festival back home. Mine for many years were cheap plastic lanterns, with light bulbs inside. Candles were simply too dangerous.

As I am writing this post, I now am remembering a special lantern that looked like a big pull toy dog made of white paper that looked like real furs. I remember now how proud I was of my special lantern. I could not wait for the day to arrive when I could go into the street, joining the children walking around with lit lanterns. (I guess it was fun way back when…) I am crying now because I also remember that my special lantern caught on fire and was burnt down not long after I joined the crowd in an impromptu parade.

I was inconsolable for days afterwards.

Wow. That flashback is rather traumatic…

[Regroup via visiting Twitter and talking to random strangers… ]

[Ok. I am back!]

The funny thing is, this picture showing sky lanterns was indeed taken in Taipei. However, releasing sky lanterns is a tradition fabricated (or perhaps “invented” would be a better, at least kinder, word?)  Taipei, like all cosmopolitan cities, are feeling the erosion of traditions. People are feeling the longing for a splendid past that frankly most of us had never seen. And so we decided to start making our own, and believing in the histories of it.

Self-invention. Us urbanites are experts.

Splendid.

Thanks for the Memories

I saw Duran Duran’s live concert on Friday. I have been excited and nervous about this for several months now. When I announced to my boss and my coworker that I was one of the lucky people with tickets to the sold out show, they said, “That’s embarrassing.” I LOL’ed. “No. We mean it. Don’t tell anybody!”

That’s the problem with a band called “The Pretties Boys in Rock” during the 80s when they were super popular. The magazines called them The Fab Five. And I remember arguing with my girlfriends who was the best looking. My favorite has always been Nick Rhodes. What can I say? I have a thing for guys with mascaras. Except Clockwork Orange… The other girls would always come back with John Taylor. Oh yes. That man (boy?) was gorgeous, with a square jaw that was perfectly chiseled. It makes you shiver just thinking about it. Curiously it was never Simon. Just seemed to be too obvious an answer to claim that your fav is the lead singer. Duh. Ho-hum. So we continued to fight between the Bass guitarist and the keyboardist.

I was apprehensive also because, well, I am a realist. How often when you are reunited with your childhood love do you find that present reality matches up to the memories you have been keeping in a vault?

When I got to Chicago Theatre, it became clear to me that I was not the only one there to relive my youth. I have never seen so many middle-aged women dressed “correctly” for a rock concert in one place. The ladies knew why they were there and they came prepared. There were so many women dressed in their rock regalia, complete with black stockings, chokers, pink (or purple or whatever) hair, and tattoos. Lots of tattoos. Almost everyone was wearing boots. I even saw a pink boa.

What would their teenage daughters have said?… 

It was kickass and uplifting. Fuck those young girls who think WE should behave OUR age. But it was also depressing at the same time. I know I know. I have issues. But it made me sad to reflect on why I was there. To relive my youth. To grasp at something that was not there any more.

Fortunately I very quickly consumed four cran-vodkas and I was my ol’ spunky self again. (You’ve got to know I am being a bit sarcastic about the whole being spunky part…)

If you just google, you will see that Duran Duran has fully embraced the 21st century and social media, and that means they are all over Twitter. Not only was live Twitter stream with the hashtag DuranLive projected on the screen before the show started, in the middle of the show, there was an official Twitter session!

Nick, can I wear your red scarf for 5 seconds? #duranlive

Someone tweeted the girl in front of me is crazy. Am gonna assume that’s not me since im no longer a girl #duranlive

 

In the end, it was awesome. It was awesome not because they reminded me of the gorgeous boys that they once were. I am not saying they are not handsome any more. They still are. If you’re born with great bone structures, unless you totally fucked yourself up with drug and alcohol, time will be kinder to you than to the rest of us. John Taylor for one is still rocking that square jaw. *shiver* And of course, I swear to god, even from the back of the theatre, I could see Nick with his mascaraed eyes and his red scarf being all fabulous and sexy. They put on a great show with great energies, and boy, can Simon sing. In fact, I came home and watched some of their old performances from the 1980s, and I think Simon sings even better now. There is experience in his voice and performance. Like matured wine. Yum. And John can still rock that bass. And Nick… Well. Nick lives forever. (You’ve got to allow me to retain some shameless teenage fangirl crushing…)

Of course, knowing most of the lyrics and being able to sing along made this an even more awesome night. I was glad I went and lived through some time-space discontinuum phenon: It’s surreal to see your band crush perform live on stage, even if there was a 25-plus-year time gap.

For one night the crowd shared a communal experience. We sang. We danced. We screamed. We partied with our teenage selves.

(And in my usual, annoying way, I have to add this:) Then we went back to our normal lives. Most likely in the suburbs. Hopefully this stays with us a bit longer…

Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
And when she shines she really shows you all she can
Oh Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande

 

Pictures of poor quality below and video compilation of even poorer quality after the jump.

 

Old Soul

My 8 year old, Mr. Monk, is on a “Back to the Future” kind of mission lately.

He’s acquired two rotary phones earlier this year for a buck each at a garage sale. Probably my fault for I might have explained to him, with too much excitement, how we used to hate folks’ phone numbers with too many zeros and nines.

Click click click click. As you dialed that dial all the way around. Impatience grew. Why can’t they have a number that’s 111-1111? You know what I am talking about. If you don’t, ask your grandma about it.

I have also told him that it would be a great idea to have a rotary phone in the house as it does not require electricity to work and will come in handy one day when we lose power yet the phone line still works. (And what do you know? We did lose power for a whole day and his rotary phone did save the day)

After the rotary phones, he’s been obsessed with what he calls “things from the olden days”. The other day he came home from the neighbor’s house with an gigantic outdated cordless phone. “They gave it to me for free even though I offered to pay for it!” I wonder why. This one is truly a big chunk of lead weight.

 

You may have seen this photo floating around the Book of Face:

 

First of all, Mr. Monk totally knew the answer because I have told him the story one too many times. (Huh. I am seeing a pattern here…) It was almost like a sign because on the same night when I first LOL at this picture, we acquired a Sony double decker complete with high speed dubbing action from Craigslist for $20. After I casually mentioned how much it would mean for Mr. Monk to have a good ol’ boombox that can also RECORD, the man offered to drive 20 miles on the same night to bring it to us. Mr. Monk was beyond excited. He stood by the window waiting for his new old toy the way other kids waited for a new puppy. It was fascinating to watch his fascination as I explained to him, and my 13 year old, how each of the buttons worked and how to prevent from taping over the cassette tapes by accident. (Many a tears were shed for such accidents…)

Here’s him posing a la Say Anything at my coercion…

 

We have been listening to the 80s music in this household, and this time it is NOT playing inside my head. Mr. Monk seems to have taken a liking to Pet Shop Boys… I notice repeat plays of “Left to My Own Devices” almost every day… Oh what have I done?

The Husband asked, “Do you think we should tell him about record players?” I gave him The Look. But it is probably just a matter of time since at our Goodwill store, there is an entire table stashed with records for $1 each. I will keep you all updated.

Although I managed to not come home from Goodwill with any records, we did come home with this:

For two bucks? A good deal. That is, until I found out that films cost about $3 each and hard to find. This is a great contrast to how we snap away when we take pictures with digital cameras. Since the marginal cost is zero, we tend to ignore the pictures once they are taken. Somehow though, the old photos without digital copies seem to occupy a more special place in our hearts. I think Mr. Monk is right in wanting to bring back forth that sliver of magic that comes with pre-digital technology. There is something to be said to be able to hold something in your hand.

Tangible.

That is one of the new words he’s learned.

 

p.s. This post has been approved by Mr. Monk himself on the condition that I tell you he is not just an old soul. “Just tell them. I am of the past, present and future.”

 

 

I’ve never been to me*

This post is inspired by The Bloggess‘ latest post I have no fucking idea what I am doing which has inspired 500 (and counting) comments so far, including the three comments I’ve left there… *cough cough* yes, I am a comment hog… 

I have been grappling with this question: Who am I? since high school, and it has induced a lot of angst and crazy shit, including reading and misreading existentialist novels, and a suicide attempt because it felt exhausting and pointless to go on living.

I remember one of my teachers was particularly asinine. For example, this being an all girls’ school, she would interfere in people’s friendships whenever she thought the young women were too close to each other emotionally. (More about that, and my life in all girls high school some time later…)  Anyway, one day she decided to talk about our mottos in life. So she wrote a bunch of standard, expected, nice things, e.g. the Golden Rule, be grateful, Karma, etc. Then she asked us to vote. I did not raise my hand, thinking it would not matter. That bitch went and added up the vote, and got pissed when she realized she was one person short. “Who did not raise their hand?!” she hissed. She had that look on her face that made me defiant (otherwise I’m usually quite easy going) and so I raised my hand.

“Why didn’t you vote?”

“Because none of them are my motto in life.”

She smirked. “Well, what is it then?”

I got up and walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote my name. True (or truth). Then I sat back down.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She hissed again, taunting.

“It means one should be true to themselves and be who they are.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ok then. Let’s vote again.”

Nobody raised their hand for the first choice. Nor for the second one. Nor for the third one… … When she got to the last one, the one I added, every single person in my class raised her hand.

This youthful obsession with finding oneself and staying true to it came hand in hand with my obsession of Hermann Hesse’s Demian. I was hooked by the very first line from the book:

I wanted only to try to live my life in accord with the promptings which came from my true self.  Why was that so very difficult?

This being one of the classic Bildungsroman, the protagonist’s main objective was to find himself, on a path to enlightenment and self realization.

Each man’s life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.

This sounds great and vaguely romantic on paper, unfortunately, it caused a lot of heartaches and confusion because try as I might, as pretentious as I wanted to be, I could not seem to embark on that journey. I did not even know where the Yellow Brick Road started.

During my “self searching” formative years, I wrote the only short story of mine that was ever published. Don’t get too excited, it was published by the school magazine. I don’t even have a copy of the magazine and I can only barely remember what I wrote. It was narrated in first person (of course!) fashioned after Notes from the Underground. The Narrator complained about having trouble recognizing her own face in the shop windows when she walked by, in the mirrors, and in group photos. What she saw was a young woman with an unnatural smile that made her look as if the corners of her mouth were pinned to the sides of her cheeks. She could not recognize her. Blah blah blah. She ended up carving herself a smile. (WAY before The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as The Joker…)

Now that I am (much much) older and (debatable) wiser, I think I’ve got it figured out. The problem is that most people still subscribe to the idea of a true self being somewhere to be found, that there is this essence of oneself to be discovered.  (I think this has something to do with Plato and Aristotle from the very beginning but I have given all my knowledge about Greek philosophers back to the teacher as soon as I received my diploma…)  It is somehow our job, as we grow, to discover what that essence, that core, i.e. our true self, is.

But here is the right question to ask, imo: What if there is no core? What if we are more like onions? What if we are made up of all the layers? If so and you still believe in finding that core, no wonder you feel lost: as you peel away each layer of the onion, you are like, FUCK! There is another door behind this door!   What if we shift the paradigm of how “selves” are defined, and that every single layer is YOU?  The real you. Everything you do, everything you say, every decision you make, every breath you take, is what makes you you.

To steal Sartre’s famous line: “Existence precedes essence. ” Your essence, who you are, is defined by the way you live your life, the actions you take, the decisions you make.  This also means one’s true self is constantly changing, because our actions are constantly changing.

The person you encounter each time, even though she may be slightly different from one moment to the next, is you.

Ergo, even when I am pretending, I am being myself because in some sense, when I become so sure of myself, I cease being myself. Ouch my head hurts! I need to stop right now!

Before I end this rambling, I just want to quote e.e.cummings, yes, again, because the quotient of pretentiousness in this post has not gone through the roof just yet!

 

 

* I am not endorsing the message from the one-hit wonder I’ve Never Been to Me. Just borrowing the title. Although I’ll admit, the song is a sweet sweet gem for a good old drunken Karaoke session.

Where I’m From

I am from sunshine, sweat, and bricks of humid air.

I am from have you eaten yet.

I am from rice, salted fish, stir-fried greens, from soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, from ginger, star anise, and cayenne peppers.

I am from concrete jungle, clothes lines stretched-across the rooftops, the smell of sun in the fabrics, of gardenias, jasmines and sweet osmanthus.

I am from morning glories winding along random barbed wires, coconut trees lining the streets crowded with motorcyles, from white azaleas strewn on the ground after thunderstorms like discarded Kleenexes.

I am from greetings, and salutations, from strangers in the streets who are also uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and grandmas and grandpas.

I am from blood is thicker than water, from you don’t turn your back to your family, from families stick together.

I am from proper, ladylike, and demure. From handkerchiefs and silk scarves and pocketbooks. From you should always make sure your hand is not empty and idle. From knees together, ankles crossed.

I am from politeness, decorum, and unwritten rules that everybody abides by.

I am from hospitality, from it takes a village, from gossips and busybodies.

I am from if you swallow the watermelon seeds it will sprout from the top of your head, from don’t point your finger at the new moon otherwise she will come and cut off your ear when you are sleeping at night. From if you cry or misbehave, Auntie Tiger will come and eat you up.

I am from humility, gratitude and contentment.

I am from nobody owes you anything, from be grateful even if someone gives you a mere roll of toilet paper, from nothing you get is because you deserve it.

I am from temples, incenses, and gods and deities.

I am from reincarnation, from Karma, from eighteen layers of hell.

I am from lurid ghost stories of vengeance, from spirits within magnificent rocks and towering trees.

I am from convention, contradiction, and confusion. I am from Post-Colonialism, Late Capitalism, and Rampant Materialism.

I am from the proletariat.

I am from the hushed wrath of my father, the quiet disappointment of my mother.

I am from a bottle of Aspirins.

I am from the deafening silence of a mid-summer afternoon when the only thing you could hear was the cicadas.

 

Many thanks to Elly over at BugginWord for writing her beautiful piece “Where I’m From” and for alerting us to this wonderful writing exercise. Of course, I did not follow the rules in the template, not because I am some rebel chick but because I am not good at writing descriptive scenes. 

A-Ha

As I was sitting in the cafeteria during lunch hour today, I noticed that the music selection has been veering towards the 80s this week.

“Did you notice the music?” I asked my one co-worker who has transferred to the new office with me. (So yes I am now surrounded by actual people every day at work. More about that later…)

“What about it?”

“It’s music from our youth!”

It was odd because I believe the average age at this office is 25 and the average weight is 125 lbs.

My Co-worker raised his eyebrow with suspicion.

“Come on. I listened to the same music that you listened to! There was this one English-speaking radio station in Taiwan that was a left-over from the American military occupation, and they played all the popular English songs all day long. Top 40. The best!

That was THE radio station that we all listened to when we were in college. Because it was cool.

Remember making mixed tapes? Remember there was no CD and the only way to get any music was to record songs off of the radio? How you had to press RECORD right at the second when the DJ started the song? And then you had to run to the bathroom but before you came back the song was already over and now you’ve got a bunch of talking on your tape at the end of the song? So now you had to press REWIND. STOP. Listen. Rewind some more. Repeat. Oh no. I went back too much. FORWARD FORWARD. Shit. Now I have to go backward again. Oh shit the DJ is now playing my FAVORITE song that I have not been able to get on tape?!

Remember there was no Internet. No Google? And the only way you could figure out the lyrics was by listening to the songs over and over again?

Well, if I had kept all my tapes with the lyric sheets, you could see that I had written down Chinese next to English words that I had to look up in the dictionary. That was how I learned English. How many of us learned English.

Actually till this day I still have no idea what the lyrics to most of my favorite songs are.

I wish I had kept all my mixed tapes. [I did not mention that quite a few were given as gifts by my “male friends”. Remember making mixed tapes for the person you’re interested in hoping that they’d know how you felt simply from listening to the songs?!]

Remember Wicked Game?

Every Time You Go Away?

Last Christmas? [There was eye roll and groan]

The Tide Is High?

Oh my god. Do you remember Take On Me? Do you?

I showed the boys the other day the music video of Take On Me. I told them it was ground-breaking when it first came out. Everybody was wowed because nothing like that had been done before. Of course they went Meh! on it. But oh I still remember how excited I was. We were.”

Just as I was wrapping up my psychotic rambling, complete with hand gestures and bouncing up and down on the chair, I recognized the first few notes of the next song coming from the ceiling.

I paused.

“Could this be?”

“No fucking way!”

But way. It was Take On Me.

If I did not think I am too old to be posting on My Life Is Average (or commonly known as MLIA), I would post:

Today just when I was reminiscing about how awesome it was when we first saw the music video of Take On Me, right on cue, the PA system started playing the song. MLIA.

 

It was a good day.

 

AHa – Take On Me from Eian Aldrich on Vimeo.

 

Coda: As I was finishing up this post, The Husband came to see what I was up to. “Remember this music video?!” I excitedly showed him the A-Ha MTV.  Turns out he has never ever seen it. Maybe I am a true cougar here. Maybe I have been married to a 20-year-old born after 1980 without realizing it…

You all have a good night now while I go find out whether he has ever seen the music video for Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus

Running Away

Did you ever consider running away when you were a child?

I thought I was the only one until I read this post by Matt Posky, talking about his failed attempts at running away (often thwarted by his mother’s playing along).

Running away.

When I was in kindergarten, I often wished I were adopted. (Let’s just say I have never had a warm, fuzzy relationship with my mother to begin with. Blogging made me dig deeper into my childhood memories and helped me come to realize this unfortunate fact of my life. More about that one day…)  Later in elementary school, when the emotional bullying started, in addition to wondering about suicide, I thought about running away. A lot. Just so I did not have to go to school and face my tormentors.  Fortunately for me, I was both lazy and weak therefore I never really did carry out the plan. I kept on putting my departure day off, for one excuse or another. Of course there were the usual rationalizations: Where would I go? How would I pay for anything? Where would I take a bath?

The thought of running away (and the failure to carry it out) continued into junior high. I could not remember why now, but I did remember vividly how I convinced myself to stay put week after week:

It was this television series. At that time, a TV station in Taiwan was finally allowed to show a television program from Hong Kong.  It was an epic Wu Xia series; nothing like that has ever been show before. It was on every Sunday night. And it became a sensation overnight (with a reported rating of 70%+). When it was on, people rushed home to be in front of the TV and the streets were deserted. If you were unfortunate enough to be caught outside and needing a cab at that time? You were out of luck.

I too was swept up by the fever. I kept on putting off running away because I really wanted to see the ending of the story. Every Sunday the show ended with a dramatic cliff hanger. Will the hero choose this girl over that other girl? Frankly, that’s all I wanted to know: whom he ended up with.

There were 65 episodes…

 

I know I was projecting when I became alarmed at my youngest, Mr. Monk’s obsession with the Harry Potter books. When he was devouring the books in rapid succession, I thought I recognized the longing in his voice when he recounted some of the more memorable scenes. All of a sudden, I felt a pang in my heart, and I felt sorry for Mr. Monk for having me as a mother. For having to witness some of the ugliness that a long marriage is sure to produce from time to time, to time. For having to deal with my bouts of emotional-ness followed by nonchalance. I do not want that for my children yet sometimes I would recognize that what I am witnessing could be part of a cycle, passed down from generation to generation. When I do, I panic and I spew out what pops up into my head.

Me: Honey, I just want to let you know… I am sorry. But I really did give birth to you. You are not adopted. Your real family is here. They are not coming to get you. I just want to let you know so you are not disappointed. You have to work with what you’ve got.

Mr. Monk: Mom, I don’t hate you.

 

 

A note for my dear friends and visitors: I am sorry for MIA lately. Long story short: My company has been acquired and we have been going through the whole merger, learning the new everything while having to meet the deadlines of old everything. Plus, as some of you may have heard my S.O.S. on Twitter and Facebook: I was given a Macbook Air by the very generous new employer and I realized I am actually, much to my chagrin, a Luddite. I do not know why but the whole Mac thing completely threw me off the loop. I have been stressed to the point that I have become extremely distracted: so far I have got myself into a minor accident, forgot to pick up my child, forgot about another child’s school open house. Yes, I kind of just want to run away right now from everything, including my very cool-looking, gorgeous, fancy Macbook Air.

Leaving

Whenever I think of my trips home, I think of the last moment as my parents watched me walking away

 

 

I started getting it, bit by bit, that the thing between parents and children, the thing that ties you together is that all your life, you are forever watching them walking away.

[The inadequate, rough translation mine]

I read this in a book by Lung Ying-tai, a renowned cultural critic in Taiwan, on my plane ride back to Chicago in December 2009, and I have not completely stopped crying ever since…

 

It has proven difficult for me to write about my trips home because whenever I think of them, I think of the last moment as my parents watched me walking away.

The last moment, at the airport, right before I turned around and headed towards the exit, ironically named “the entrance of emigration” in Chinese on the airport sign.

The border always carries something more than simply arbitrary and abstract. The pang was so visceral that I found it hard to breathe right before I steeled myself and determined that this hug was going to be the last hug. I turned. I walked towards the police officer, handed him the passports and boarding passes. I told myself every time, “Don’t cry this time,” before turning back with a raised hand towards my parents merely a dozen steps away, my mother waving with a smile on her face saying goodbye to the kids, my father teetering on his cane, his figure stooped, his expression stoic. He looked so small even though you could still see traces of his healthier self when we made fun of him by comparing him to the Happy Buddha. I squeezed my heart into a smile on my face. I waved one last time and quickly stepped into the customs area. And then, they lost sight of me.

This is always the moment when my tears start beading along the edges of my eyes until they get so heavy that they roll down my cheeks. I cry because I know my father is crying at this moment as soon as we are out of sight.

My family has learned to have the tissue at ready because, like me, my father is especially susceptible to crying.  I didn’t become privy to this family fact till when in college, we watched Graves of the Fireflies together, I turned around at one point and saw my father’s face wet with tears. I moved the box of Kleenex that I was holding in front of him. He acknowledged it by pulling a handful of tissues from the box and blowing his nose throughout the movie.

I tried to wipe the tears away so I was not embarrassing myself in front of the airport security. Perhaps they have gotten used to seeing people in tears as they pretended not to notice the fact that I was heaving and hicupping from trying to act normal. My 12-year-old patted me on my back, “Mom, are you ok?”

I nodded and gave him an embarrassed smile.

“You cry every time we leave.” He said, perhaps not quite understanding the possibility of such heartache.

I am always grateful that the act of leaving lasts only until the x-ray machine. I will soon be sufficiently distracted by the procedures, the logistics, and the anticipation for the dreadful 20-hour trip back to Chicago.

 

CODA: If I were writing in Chinese for a Chinese readership, I would have mentioned this prose essay, “Retreating Figure” (Bei Ying, 背影) by the famed Chinese poet/essayist in the early 20th century, Zhu Ziqing, which has become part of the collective cultural memory. The title is literally “Rear View”: you can understand why it is not really the best choice in this case. You could defuse the unintentional comedy by calling Zhu’s moving essay about his father “Seeing Father from the Back” but it detracts from the one-two punch the short Chinese title delivers. Sometimes there is simply no easy translation. In “Retreating Figure”, Zhu described his leave-taking with his father as the older Zhu saw his son off at a train station. The father crossed several train tracks to purchase some tangerines for his son for the train ride. The writer vividly described his father’s endeavor as he climbed down and then up the platforms, crossed the train tracks, and then back, stopping in between his arduous journey to wipe the sweat off of his brows. No emotions were transcribed into words between father and son, or on paper, and yet this is one of the most moving pieces of literature I have read. I close my eyes and I can see the back of the older Mr. Zhu walking away as this image is overlaid with the image of my father, standing there watching me as I walk away.

Ants

I have been thinking about ants a lot lately. Or rather, the absence of ants. It probably has a lot to do with all the holiday-related activities happening in this house: cookie baking, frosting, sprinkling, gingerbread house decorating. Every time when I see Mr. Monk walking around with a sugar cookie that he has added frosting and sprinkles to, I wince and say to him, “You are lucky we don’t have ants in this house.”

After saying that, I then half expect the ants to show up just to teach us a lesson. Hubris! I live in its shadow.

Moments like this remind me that one of the things about living in America I am most grateful for, in addition to the awesome return policy in most stores, is the lack of ants. The lack of paranoia that a single piece of crumb would attract a horde of ants within five minutes. And there are a lot of crumbs in this house. My kids are like crumb machines; their mouths, as what mothers in Taiwan would say, are like a chipped bowl.

Growing up in Taiwan, I was always wary of leaving crumbs on the floor partly because my mother was vigilant in covering up food and picking up crumbs while yelling “The ants will come and move you back to their colony at night!” and partly because swarms of ants really creep me out. Like the flying German cockroaches, ants are common in houses (i.e. apartments) in Taiwan, at least the places I lived in growing up. It does not matter how clean your house is, they still show up uninvited.

I remember watching wayward ants move along the cracks on the wall as I studied late at night. I followed their trajectories, mesmerized. The wall must be immense from their perspective, like traversing a desert plain. How do they find their friends? Sometimes I would set up “road blocks” by holding my ruler against the wall, forcing the lone ant to change her direction. Again. And again.

Now that I started down the memory lane, I realized that one of my most vivid childhood memories was also one of my greatest childhood traumas:

My mother came home one day from her job at the hotel with a rare treat: a piece of Black Forest Cake. A hotel guest had given my mother the leftover from their party. I had never owned something so extravagant in my life (at that time): The cake was fancifully decorated with delicate chocolate shavings with a cherry perching on top of a tower of whipped cream. It was too beautiful to be eaten and I could not bring myself to cause the cake to disappear. I left it out on the dinner table so I could admire it in all its glory and take my time to savor it later.

I fell asleep before I had the chance.

As soon as I opened my eyes the next morning, I remembered my cake! I put my face right next to it, Ah, CAKE! but noticed that the chocolate sprinkles were moving around…

My father ran to the scene following my scream. He took a lighter and got rid of the ants covering the entire cake. “Here. See? Your cake is ok again.”

“NOOOOOO!!!!!” I was inconsolable. “It is NOT!”

“Look! It tastes just as good.” He took a spoonful of the cake and put it in his mouth to show that the cake was still edible.

All I could do was cry as my father kept on taking a bite off the cake to convince me to try.

I can’t remember how long it took me to recover from the shock. But to this day, whenever I remember that scene, I can still feel the overwhelming sense of regret. If only.

As a grown-up, when I am at a bakery or a coffee shop, I can’t help but order a piece of Black Forest Cake if it is available. But somehow it never tastes as good as the piece that I had never tasted.

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