My mother, like many mothers who have a 30-year-old single daughter, is worried that I'll never get married. Whenever the topic comes up, I get a little snappish, so she's learned to employ a code question: "Are you making any new friends?" She used to be much more explicit in offering advice on what I should be doing to fetch myself a husband. Here is a conversation from when I was in graduate school. I'm chatting with my mom and her sister, whom I call Ee Ma, which is my phonetic rendering of "Second Aunt" in Cantonese.
Me: Yeah.
Mom: How did she meet her husband?
Me: She was an undergrad at Davis, and he was a law student.
Ee Ma: Davis has a law school?
Me: Yeah. And a good one, from what I hear.
Ee Ma: So Davis has a business school, medical school, and law school.
Me: Yeah...
Ee Ma: Then why is it so hard for you to find a boyfriend??
Me: ... uh... What am I supposed to do? Walk into the medical center with a head wound and go, "Help! Help! I need a doctor! But wait-- Are you single?"
Ee Ma: No no no. You find out where the medical students go to eat lunch, and then you go there, too.
Mom: Should be simple.
Ee Ma: That's what Auntie Mimi did.
Me: Who's Auntie Mimi?
Mom: You know, your cousin Amos's mom.
Me: I have a cousin Amos?
Mom: I've TOLD you about Amos! He's very funny. His wife is a doctor. They just had a baby.
Me (still not having any idea who these people are): Um. Okay.
Ee Ma (cutting in): Anyway, Auntie Mimi and her friends would go to the place where the Stanford medical students would eat lunch, and she would whistle at them.
Me: WHAT?
Ee Ma: Yes. She would whistle, and that's how she got Uncle Gerard's attention.
Me (seriously impressed): Wow. But wait... I thought Uncle Gerard was married to Aunt Vivian.
Ee Ma: He is.
Me: So he and Aunt Mimi dated?
Ee Ma: No no no. Mimi was interested in Gerard, but he didn't want to date a Shanghainese girl. So Gerard introduced her to his brother Raymond.
Me (thinking, "What's wrong with Shanghainese girls?"): Oh really!
Ee Ma: And at first Mimi hated Uncle Raymond, probably because she was still mad at Gerard. But eventually Mimi and Raymond started dating. And then they got married.
Me: Huh.
Ee Ma: So that's what you should do, too.
Me: You mean whistle like this? *Demonstrating my best suggestive whistle*
Ee Ma (laughing): Yeah!
Mom (cutting in): Where did you learn to whistle like that?
Me: Don't you know, mom? I got mad skills!
Mom: ...
Ee Ma: See, so easy, right?
Me: So I guess I'm ready to find myself a doctor now!
Ee Ma: Don't go by yourself! Go with some friends. Or people will think you're weird.
END.
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