A long post about Filial piety from my point of view (Part 1)
First of all, I think I need to make things clear: this is not a philosophical post nor sth religious, political etc. This is just a post for me to talk about something that is happening to me involving household problems, parental problem, and some of principal Filial piety that making me thinking, cause Idk how long can I carry on without letting things off my chest. Yes, I should have came up with a more close-to-the-ground title, but it's 2 a.m now and I don't have enough energy for brainstorming. Also pardon me if you find this post somewhat hard to follow. I just write down things that came up in my mind, I will edit them later if conditions are met. English is also not my native language, so excuse my grammar and vocabs.
I came from a common family. When I said "common family", I meant it. My parents are both blue collar workers. Both growing up in the time of Vietnam concentrated economy, both dropped out of school as soon as they were able to earn money. So, yeah, not really coming from a long line of artist or scholar lineage. And heck we definite don't have a penny to our name
Mom used to work in a clothes factory as long as I could remember, until the paycheck no longer be able to cover the expense. She retired, .Even now she's still doing the same thing, picking up orders from shop owners, doing her parts, and delivering the products back. She's the one responsible for the tuition fee of me and my brother, and so far , she's the one putting me through college. Tbh, though I'm helping her as much as I can , I am not really fond of her job. Back in the freshman year, I many time found myself felling desperate while helping her ironing the details.
Dad works many years as a security guard for a real estate corporation, in which my uncle works as a desk-job-worker (idk what's his position, but he definitely helped my dad landing his job). He used to be assigned to some of the comp establishment, until finally rooting in a wet market near house. Back in the day, he also worked as a somewhat motorcycle tavi driver (it's like Uber drive, but for bike, and before the apps), but as time went, he got older, and Idk if he is still doing this, but it's less likely, since he's really adapting to the modern technology (but to somewhat degree, it's still causing troubles, but I will get to that).
We lived as a nuclear family (4 members, recently adopted a dog, so 5), but my fatherside relatives literally live next door, and we all live in smalls houses in a small alleys, pretty much counted as an extended family. So, yeah, I grew up from a typical-minimum-wage common Asian nuclear-extended family. To be frank, the minimum wage is only achieved some what when I was in the secondary school. I remember many time my aunt have to bring over food for my dinner cause there's nothing on the table beside white rice, fish sauce, boiled vegetable and water of it. And especially as an Asian family, we are still very much influenced by traditions and customs, and undoubtedly, Asian generational bad habbit.
Let's start with the less problematic one, my Mom. As a child raised by an 100% pure-blood, out-of-mold Asian mom, I can assure you that those memes on the internet about them is very much true, more or less. Cause growing up, there's two things I can be sure my mom has for me: expectation, and strict parenting. As far as I can remember, the first essay I wrote at school was "Write a letter to a friend and talk about your dream job", and I pretty sure I wrote that I "...want to be rich, and to achieve that dream, I will go for financial college...". I was 7-8 then. I liked super heroes, I liked games, I like toys like other boys...and for some reason, that idea has been implanted into my mind since childhood, and I'm pretty sure I didn't get that from my dad.
"...But she's your mom. It's normal for her to have high hopes for her kids..." . Yes, I'm not blaming her for that. And to be honest, compare to many other typical Asian moms, her expectation for us is much more simple: all she wants is a house in Dalat to enjoy her old age there alone.
(For those who don't know, Dalat is like a resort city in my country. Located in the highland region, heavily influenced by French architecture, well known for its fauna diversity, it's like those European travel destinations, but in Vietnam.)
In short, she wanted to have a problem-free, carefree future, and sure, that's the least thing I can do for her, since she's the one that looks after me all the time. One thing about Asian household is that it's heavily matriarch, and mine is no exception. My mom is the one taking care of our needs (she bought clothes, toys, anything we want that appropriate), our academic performances (she paid the tuition fees, and she spent everything she had just to give us the best education) and especially our health. I was born with some physical flawns, the "God perfected, and I defected/ I was made wrong" problems, especially with the testicles, and many time in my growing, my mom had to be the one paying my medical bills AND taking care of my sick little body. I remember when I was in the age of ten, I went through a major operation, it was mom who had to go around, borrow money from every person she knew to pay for the operation and medicines, and it took her quite a while to pay it all back. Even now, whenever I feel under the weather, it's still my mom that I go for to tell about my condition.
But back to the main point, she takes care of us, it's obviously we have to take a good care of her, no doubt. But growing up under her wings, there's one thing that really holding her from being a perfect mother (I know I sound like a dick here, but tbh, I haven't found a way to address this differently), at least in my view: overcomparison, both herself and others in her household to other. See, in our Vietnamese culture, there's this thing called "con nhà người ta" (the other kids). Growing up, you will be constantly be compared to those other kids. You didn't get a good mark in the exam? "Those other kids could make it, why couldn't you". You said that the other kids couldn't do better? "That's the other kids problems. It's YOU problem". In short, the perfect comparison/ excuse to be yelled at.
And in my case, it's somewhat worse.
Cause to me, that other kid did exist.
She was two year older. And unlike me, her household is much more stable. She went to prestige schools, and her academic performances is way better. She's also well behaved and hard working, etc.
In short, the perfect Golden Child
Don't get me wrong. I love my aunt (that sounds a little bit wrong, but yes, I do love her). We are really close (probably somewhat due to our small age gap). She's always like a sister to me. And nowadays, I usually come to her when I need advice at all sort of stuffs (We're also major in I.T, so yeah, a lot of advices needed).
But growing up being compared to her is not a pleasant memories, though I don't really have much problem with that.. Mostly when my mom made those comparisons, it's after the parent-teacher meetings, and usually in those meeting, I was said to be "troublesome", more or less. But tbh, before high school, I wasn't sure if I was such a headache. A little bit talkative in elementary, mostly bad hand writing in junior high, nothing serious. Yes I admit I was full blown awful in high school: late attendance, skipping class( due to being late), dozing off in class, etc. And nowadays, hearing my mom recalled those meeting, I don't think the problem was as big as an elephant like it seemed to be.
I cannot be objective about this, cause now looking back, I'm not sure if I was a well-behaving. You see, as a tailor, my mom used stick and ruler a lot. She used to had this one particular stick that was like carved from a intact wood body. So slim, yet so thick that every time you swang it, you could here the sound of the air splitted, and when it hit the flesh with enough force, it would leave a mark that lasted for days.She used to use that stick to spank us, disciplined us when we're not well behaving. And unfortunately, I'm the elder one. I grew up with smacks on my bottom, so much that one of my aunt had to warn my brother to behave cause "You didn't get smacked in the butt as much as your brother did". And usually the reason I got smacked, as I can recall, was probably because I was lying, or I ripped pages out of my notebook. My brother was lucky that it got lost somewhere.
But the worst case of my disciplining didn't involve the stick. It was when I in the 2nd grade. Mom was still a factory worker, Dad usually home so he made lunch for me. I used to walk home during noon time, and go back to school at the begining of the afternoon. There're those shops near school that sold toys and candies which many times caught my attention. As a kid, I didn't have much allowance. So, when I saw some cash lying around, being on the altar for spiritual reason, or around for some reason, I constantly took some of them. Things got worse, to the point I started pick pocketing my parent's wallet. Soon after that, no doubt that my mom caught me red handed. And comes one of my biggest childhood trauma moment: my mom walking into the bedroom, with a knife. And I can still remember she saying "It's you or me. Your choice". It seems that my dad had a bad habit of stealing money from my mom, even before I was born. So seeing her kids following that footstep is not an option.
Another time I broke her heart is nack in junior high. I usually hang out at the internet cafe (it's like the arcade center, but with computers) near my school which was conveniently near my house. My mom was already having a bad impression about those places, deeming them as "nests of bad habit", plus the senior year of junior high was considered more important than the highschools, due to the entry exam that you can only participate once in a lifetime. You could say that she was more or less sitting on the fire then. And because I went to a local school, she got a pretty tight grip of my schedule. I was caught red handed being in those place no less than five time. The worst time was when she decided to smashed that one usb I used to download film into so that I could watch them at home (we didn't have wifi nor pc at home back then). I did recall it clearly that I said "Why don't you just unalive me already?". I didn't really remember what happened after that, but I'm pretty sure we didn't see eyes to eyes for at least a week. And yeah, back then my concept of life and stuffs was pretty twisted, probably affected by things considered "edgy". And that's definitely the most stupid thing I have ever said. Nowaday, I don't even dare to address any problem that unthoughtfully. But yeah, words for future parents: brace yourself for the tween/ teenage, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
But well, as I getting older, I realized that all of those high expectations and strict parenting was so that my brother and I can grow up to be "decent people". She has sacrificed most of her life to this family, to us. So much that even when considering thing from a respective point of view, even I couldn't ask for more (and it will be ungrateful if I ever let those thoughts out loud). Even though I used to think that her hopes and dreams for me was strangling me, or still I think that putting all your hopes and dream on the shoulder of your kids to carry is not the most suitable things, I can't deny that everything she has done is for our best, and so I try to meet some of her expectations. I got into university, "The top university of engineering of the whole nation" more precisely (it's like MIT in comparison), so at least she has sth to be proud of so far. I had this job as a English tutor in my first few years in college, when I always use my paycheck from that to help her with the bills. And yeah, I am still going to hold my end of bargain, I will tried to help her get her dream house, sooner or later.
And for my money problem, tbh nowadays, I don't even want to ask money from my parents (only when I need to refill the bike, and the account is lower than the minimum withdrawn threshold), let alone steal it.
But, as all things in life connect to each other one way or another. My mom habit of comparing somehow affects to the major problem in my household: my Dad.
P/s: I intended to make it all into one post, but yeah so much things to say that I have to consider. And because my Dad is , in my pov, more of a problem than my mom has ever been, I think I have to deliver this carefully.
Thank you, Mom, for everything. It's my sins that I will never says "Thank you" or "I love you" enough.
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