&& reflections on growing up chinese in canada, and without a father to learn from.
my mom often told me about how growing up, she and her sisters would often eat plain rice. she said that she loved when my grandmother cooked rice with the pork fat from the night before. they made bone soups and ate meals with cai, vegetables. my grandmother kept hens in the backyard in cages, and took the eggs from them every day. when a hen was getting old, she would slaughter it. my mom didnāt like the henās meat, because it was only when the hen was getting sick and close to death that they would eat that meal.
my mom grew up with two older sisters, and she talks about how she was the ugly one, and had slanted eyes. she had new toys one day and wanted the other kids to play with her, and they did, but often they made fun of her. in high school she got put into theĀ ādumbā class, although she says that her father fought it.
actually, I miss my grandparents, and Iād like to get to know my aunts more. there are... entire swaths of my history which have been cut from me, an absence which only makes itself known when confronted with warmth. I am a chinese illiterate. my inability to speak chinese goes deeper than simply not wanting to learn. I do want to learn and connect with my family. is it too late? is it too late? Iām afraid they wonāt like what they see.
home is important, and your country is important. to feel connected...to feel as though you are part of a great history. because alone we are so weak. to feel connected to the men and women who came before, to be given a voice. to have heroes, to have community, to have something to hope for, someone to aspire to.Ā
I felt erased. Alienated from my culture and family. I hated China but I missed China. It felt foreign but I felt at home. I missed the signs. I couldnāt read the signs. I left when I was five.
where was this country? where was my country? I felt like I did not belong.
Canada was home but it was not my home.
I couldnāt read the menu.
Chinese people, weāre not all the same. We came from very different places. Donāt treat us like weāre all the same. We have the same black hair, but we are very different. our families are different. our histories are different. our lives were different. even our food is different. so why do you treat us like we are all the same?
why do you not want us here? why do you say that we are taking over?
why donāt I see any chinese faces on the TV? why is it that when I see one, it is a token chinese?
why do you think that we are all good at math? why do you think that we are all very hardworking?
somehow it seems like if you say that we are all very hardworking, somehow my hard work is not attributed to me, it is attributed to my being chinese. but donāt you see how hard I have been working? donāt you see how difficult it is? all these years I have kept my head down and kept working, not looking around me to see. it was so hard to pay attention to what was going on around me. I did not like what was going around me! where was my dad? why didnāt we talk about him? why didnāt we visit his grave? why didnāt we talk to his family? where was he? where was he... who are all of these other men... who donāt know me... who donāt know my father...who donāt care about you....like water, just like water, theyāre slipping away like grease.
who was that engineer in san francisco? why were you the other woman?
and now you are gone, and I am awake, and you are asleep. the way that you looked on the day that you died... it was the last day of april. you were already gone, for weeks... you had already been asleep.
I want to say something--please, let me speak! Somehow all of these years I have been talking, but I have never been given the chance to speak.
prguitarman
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic
kianamaiart
2087