Month: April 2024

I still get the horror of my mother every time I walk into my home. That coolness she exhibits, the façade that no one can possibly cross. When I was growing up she was a cold mother who was never there, who was constantly in her own head, locked up in her room, on the cellphone. The originator, she screamed at me all the time because she didn’t know why I was different — like a parent with a child with Downs. Empathy for someone different to you is borne from understanding difference, and I often wonder if someone raised in the East understands difference, when there is no reference point or material to work with. Like two planets, like two passing ships, in rejection, in orbit.

She was more like my mum than my actual mum. My biological mum and I have always had our differences— I don’t understand home-making, and letting your identity be subsumed by your child. I never understood her Shanghainese brand of just letting me do whatever I wanted. There was no discipline, just a soft noodle-like consistency of care. When I needed her psychologically, there were moments when she lapsed. Grief is like an unseen, hard rock, where the ailment is on the inside rather than the outside. No one knows about it; it is hidden and secretive and shameful. I’m alone. I always felt like my paternal grandmother was my spiritual home, because she just got me. It was like we had known each other for many lifetimes, and she just knew what to say. I wanted to understand and be understood by her, the red thread that bound us was spiritual and there was a lineage there. I couldn’t say the same for my mother, because she was always so anxious to make my life a pattern for her own well-being. My grandma and I’s independence was so great that when I asked if I should move in with her, she said a definitive no, which hurt me and also gave me confidence. #daywhateverthefuckofgrief

I would have died on their watch. My immigrant parents fed me and clothed me, but for me spiritually they did nothing. I think I would have died on their watch. If I didn’t have a herd of people who understood the ins and out of being in a village; they surrounded me. They did what my parents couldn’t do, and now that I’m older, I realise the absence. How was a single woman to survive without another fundamental need, which is to be understood? Some, especially those in the literary arts, would say that being understood is better than food and shelter— cause what is there apart from someone else understanding you? I think the truth of it is that when my paternal grandmother died I died with her. I wish I could be fourteen again and have her next to me, in Beijing, teaching me the Ballad of Mulan. It was the only time when anything made any sense to me. But she transmitted more than the Ballad of Mulan, she transmitted to me her brand of living and loving— compassionate, open-hearted, open-minded. The Chinese for this is kāifāng, 开放, and that, coupled with the fact that her ancestors came from the south of China, meant that she just embodied an open attitude to the world. When I shaved my head at 29 or 30, and dyed my hair blue, she didn’t batter an eyelid. Her response was— oh, I saw that hairstyle on TV the other day. I will forever be looking for her replacement in all my relationships. And so really I was having a funeral for myself, not for someone else. The times I was walking down the street last year during Clear and Bright, and this year during Clear and Bright, I was having a funeral, holding a funeral, for myself. So much of this year has been, I’ve already died, so who cares. If I get on a plane or bus and think there might be a crash— I’ve already died so who cares? If I see a car swerving towards me— I’ve already died so who cares? If I am with a person who’s going to poison my soul, I’ve already died, so who cares?