Mama Fung's Pep Talk

One of my favorite movies from adolescence is the 1994 version of Little Women. It's a beautifully rendered adaptation of one of my favorite girlhood novels and appeals to my geeky fondness for period dramas. Also, featuring pre-klepto Winona Ryder, pre-grumpy Christian Bale, and classic-cry-face Claire Danes, the movie is so wonderfully 1990s.

The older I get, the more I realize that what I really love about the film is one short scene in which Jo, after turning down a marriage proposal, rails about how she's restless for a life she can't see yet. Marmee (played perfectly by Susan Sarandon) tells her, "You have so many extraordinary gifts. How can you expect to live an ordinary life?" That might be the best thing a mother could ever say, and I realize more and more how much I needed to be told this when I was 14. Should I have a daughter one day, I hope to impart the same message.

My mother has her own version of this advice whenever my life has taken a turn for the unexpected: "A strange girl like you, hard to find someone who appreciates you. Better to be single and free."

Care Package from Mom

My mom calls me today to say, "I made some Chinese New Year cakes and I will be sending you one in the mail. Also in that package, I will send some tea that helps with constipation. Oh, and it's good for your skin... What's so funny?"

Life of Fung

I took my parents to see the movie Life of Pi, which turned out to be a fitting family activity, given that this past year has given us both great challenges and great blessings. Afterwards, we had dinner and chatted about what we got out of the story.

Papa Fung: "The story is about hope, obviously. Even when the boy thinks he's going to die, something good happens, and he's saved. I thought the movie had a very positive feeling."

...

Mama Fung: "That is what marriage is: being stuck on a boat with a tiger."


END.

Revoking My Model Minority Card

Mama and Papa Fung have been looking after a brother and sister pair, ages 8 and 4, a few times a week. Perhaps because their parents once lived a cosmopolitan life that included living in Japan for a while, they want their kids to become immersed in different languages and cultures from an early age. They have sent the kids to Chinese school, and their previous nanny also spoke to them in Mandarin. As a result, the kids are remarkably fluent, and their accent is spot-on. My parents reinforce their education by speaking to them only in Mandarin and by teaching them some easy words to read and write.

My mother has been reflecting on why she hasn't been as successful in instructing her own children. She had to drag me kicking and screaming to Chinese school when when I was a kid, and quickly lost the struggle to maintain a Mandarin-speaking household the second I started preschool and jabbered in English. (It doesn't help that my father speaks Cantonese, so that was the dialect I was more exposed to growing up.) As a result, I speak Mandarin with the fluency required to order food at restaurant. My Cantonese is only good for petty gossip. And the little Chinese that I can read and write I retained from college, when I finally valued my mother tongue enough to attempt to learn. In sum, my Chinese language abilities are pathetic. My brother's are worse. 

So when Mama Fung told me about these kids she's babysitting, she could only lament: "Can you believe it? These two white kids speak Chinese! WHITE KIDS! What kind of mother am I?" 

My father, however, is a bit more forgiving of himself and of his children. In the time that he's spent with these kids, he has discovered that they have absolutely no musical knowledge. They don't know any songs, and have trouble singing notes on a scale. From the time my brother and I were able to make any verbal noises, we were singing. We sang Mandarin songs my mother taught us, Disney songs, songs we learned from preschool, Beatles songs, Motown songs, songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Together with our cousins we could have been the Chinese American Von Trapp family. We also all learned musical instruments-- My brother and I both took piano and voice lessons. I played the flute in the school band; my brother played the trombone. There is not a single tone-deaf person in our family. 

Of course, this is just a testament to what constant reinforcement can do. My father, always one to believe in the power of genetics, says to me, "Come to think of it, you and your brother are smarter than these two white kids anyway." 

A Fung Thanksgiving

This is the first Thanksgiving that I will not be spending with my family. As I prepare to host my own dinner with friends, I think about the evolution of the Thanksgiving feast in the Fung clan. When I was little, we primarily had Chinese food. Because nobody liked turkey or knew how to cook it, we had roast duck instead. Instead of potatoes, my mom would make her sticky rice dish, not unlike the kind you get at dim sum, with sausage, chicken, mushrooms, shrimp, and scallops. Veggies would be the usual bok choy or similar leafy green. Or, we would do the Chinese New Year veggie plate, with cabbage, mushroom, and glass noodles. Yams would be dessert, but cooked in a sweet broth.

As my cousins and I grew a bit older, we wanted to emulate the meals we learned about at school and on television. Some of the Chinese dishes remained, but we introduced turkey into the meal. I recall the first few were dry. There may have been attempts to season it with soy sauce. It didn't occur to us that cranberry sauce could be made from scratch, so we always got the canned stuff (which to this day I still have a soft spot for). We made green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup and onion crisps on top. My Caucasian friends have affectionately told me that we celebrated a hybrid Chinese and "white trash" Thanksgiving.

Now that my cousins and I are the adults who plan the meals, our Thanksgivings do primarily consist of white people food, but done much better. It helps that one of my cousins is a graduate of culinary school. Last year, we spent Thanksgiving in Texas with one branch of the family who likes to deep fry their turkey. This blew our minds, as it may have been the first time we actually liked eating the turkey. Somehow, this led to us doing an entirely southern style Thanksgiving, with collard greens, corn bread, and mac-n-cheese. I wonder what the gang has planned this year.

One thing that has always remained constant regardless of how we've changed the Thanksgiving meal is my mom's sticky rice.  That has become our tradition. So this year, I'm attempting to make it on my own for the first time. My mom was very encouraging and talked me through the steps over the phone. Though in her usual fashion, she had to say, "But don't serve it to your friends if you mess it up."

Mouse Mom Democracy

Papa Fung wrote me and my brother an email with the subject heading: "Mom has guts": 



Mom and I happened to pick up the phone at the same time.

Campaigner: " We're Republican.......Can I talk to C----, please?"
Mom, "I'm C----."
Campaigner: "The economy is so bad .......Romney.....Would you care to help out?"
Mom: "I'm voting for Obama!!"
Campaigner: "I'm sorry to hear that. Have a nice evening!"

I rushed into the room and gave her a thumbs up! The first time I saw her so forceful to say no. You know what she said? 

"Do I dare to vote for Romney? Last time the kids scolded me for voting Bush." I call this mouse mom democracy. 

So I guess the thumbs up belongs to you guys. Anyway, you should congratulate her next time you talk.

Dad

Occupy Marital Conflict

Like any married couple, Mama and Papa Fung experience tensions in their marital dynamic, much of which have been aggravated by recent financial stress. My dad, being the patriarch, has a tendency to be immediately contradictory whenever anyone suggests him to do anything. I've learned to handle it by ignoring him and then letting him come around to my ideas eventually. My mom, however, the (over)sensitive person that she is, has a harder time. So with my being at home, mom will use me as an intermediary. Yesterday, she asked me to help her translate something, which dad would actually be more equipped to do, given that he actually reads Chinese. While she was out running some errands, dad and I had a talk:

Me: Dad, can you translate this thing for mom? But we don't have to tell her that you did it. She wanted me to help her, so I can say that I just used Google Translate or something.

Dad: What? Why do we have to go through that conspiracy? I tell her I can help her but she just ignores me.

Me: She feels that you just dismiss anything she has to say, so she asks me for help now. And to tell you the truth, I don't blame her. She's reacting to more than 30 years of feeling as though you don't respect her.

Dad: So for 30 years she just feels oppressed? Like in Egypt?

Me: Hahaha, I guess so.

Dad: Then that makes me Mubarak! And this is her revolution!

Me: Um, if you want to use that analogy.

Dad: Hahaha... Okay. I understand now.


END.