Today I was listening to the podcast “This
American Life” on the way home from work. This particular episode was titled
“How I got into College,” a topic that’s somewhat relevant in my current life,
since for the past few weekends me and my brother have been talking to each
other about how he’s going to get into college, under the guise of playing
video games together.
This particular episode was really good. I was
riding on the train, staring outside the window discreetly dabbing tears from
my eyes using the back of my pointer finger. The protagonist of the story was
telling his mythology of how he went from a refugee in Bosnia to a Harvard
graduate with a tenure position at UChicago through the sheer virtue of luck
and the kindness of others. It got me thinking, how much of my life is a
fluke.
That story doesn’t just begin with me though. It
begins way before I was ever born. But I’ll start telling it from where I’ve
heard it start.
Mama
Chinese is a tonal language, in the Shantou
dialect where my dad’s from Mama could mean mother, but if you emphasize both
syllables it would mean grandma. Mama is not my mom, she is my grandma on my
dad’s side of the family.
Mama was born in a rural village in China back
in the 1930s. She had a few siblings and her family worked on a farm. Back then
it wasn’t uncommon for children not to go to school. This was especially true if
you were a girl, because what’s the point of educating girls if they just get
married off? And also true if your family farmed, because what are you going to
do? Read to the rice stalks to make them grow faster?
But Mama was lucky, she went to elementary
school all the way until 6 grade. She was an intelligent girl but was pulled
out by her auntie at the end of elementary school because they needed her to
help out more on the farm. She learned how to read and write a little, but I
think more importantly she got a taste of what education was like and the
experience kindled a desire in her to learn.
It wasn’t until she was 18 before she had
another chance at school. Now the next part is a little fuzzy for me, but there
was an opportunity to test into a prestigious middle school in the area, and
someone managed to convince Mama’s aunt to let her go and take the test. She
didn’t technically qualify to even take the test. They required applicants to
be under 16. But Mama and her friend smudged the document stating their birth
year and with two strokes of a pencil changed it so that they were 16.
She took the test and 5% of the applicants were
accepted. Out of her cohort, only two kids were selected, and Mama was one of
them. She went on to attend night school, and then moved to the city to study
at a telecommunications school. She eventually moved directly from the training
school to their parent company where she worked until she retired. She had four
kids, and grandpa was always sick, so she was the one handling most of the
things in the house. Money was always tight, so the kids had to grow up fast
and do their fair share.
Present day she still live in China in the same
apartment that she bought after retiring some 20 years ago. I didn’t get to see
her frequently back when I lived in America since we traveled back to China
only once every few years. Recently, the past 3 years or so, I’ve been flying
to and from Japan a lot so I’ve been able to see her more often as I swing by
China. Everytime I am touched by how loved I feel despite these years of being
apart.
I have really clammy hands, so it’s not a
pleasant experience holding them, but whenever we crossed the road together,
she reaches out and grabs my hands. And hand in hand we would dodge cars,
motorcycles, and bikes on our way to the market.
She’s doing alright, but I can definitely see
what time has done to her health. Things like clutching the banister as she
walks one foot next the other as she makes her way to her fourth floor
apartment. While I was there I held the groceries, which were even heavy by my
standards, and I wonder what she does when no one there.
As an American I always expect there to be an
anti-U.S. sentiment in China but talking to my family, it doesn’t seem like
that’s the case. Mama came to live with us in New York for a year when my
brother William was born. Taking William out on strolls, friendly strangers
would comment on how cute he was. Those memories of the U.S. dyed her
impressions of Americans as a open-hearted bunch.
Popo
Popo, not like the police popo or rhymes with
bobo the clown popo. It’s really hard to romanize non-mandarin Chinese, but I
assure you it sounds a lot nicer than it does in your head. But anyway, Popo is
Cantonese for grandma. She’s my mom’s mom.
I’m not sure if she had an education beyond
elementary school, but growing up I remember watching her put on her reading
glasses and read the Chinese newspaper we picked up from Flushing. She was a
really accomplished woman, though not in the sense that the word is usually
used. When she was younger she single handedly saved her siblings from
starvation, and till this day it’s a debt that can’t be repaid.
She passed away my Junior year in highschool, so
most of my information about her life is second hand from my mom. But my mom
remembers back in her childhood that when Popo got off work at the factory she
would bike home with a giant bag of chestnuts. Popo and my mom would then peel
and wash that entire bag, which then would be brought back to the factory and
sold for a little extra money.
She was a hard worker all her life. And I would
say that it paid off. Her kids both went overseas, they both got ph.Ds, and
both now live upper income lives with highly educated children (that’s me ;)
She moved to America sometime when I was a
elementary schooler when my cousin was born. Popo lived with my uncle’s family
most of her life after immigrating to America, she had a brief stint at our
place for a year or two, but since they actually bought a house and we were
still living in various apartments in New York, she lived with them.
When she died my mom was understandably really
sad. I think what got to her the most was that we finally bought a house when
we moved to Kansas, we finally had the means to give Popo her own room. She
could finally live with us. But she was gone.
I don’t really remember the process of her
dying. It felt like it was a short period of over a year, in which I saw her
once in the middle, and once towards the end. I knew that she had cancer but
towards the end she also had a hard time remembering things, remembering me.
That final time I remember her grabbing all the grandkids and leading us into
her room where she sat us down and splitting what was left of her money among
the four of us. She split it evenly except for this one 2 dollar bill she had.
It was special and she kept it in a special place.
There was only one so it went to the oldest
cousin. Jimmy. Who by the way, is younger than me by 5 years. I’m still not
quite sure what she meant by oldest cousin. Maybe it was because he was the
oldest male cousin or maybe because Jimmy’s technically the one who’ll carry
the family name? I was understandably hurt, but more hurt by the fact that she
was not going to be here anymore.
After getting home I wrapped up the bills that
she gave me in a sheet of sketchbook paper and labeled it grandma’s money so I
wouldn’t accidentally it. She passed away shortly after. Her funeral was held
in China since the majority of her friends and family still lived there. Since
it was so far away, my mom was the only one who was able to go.
Anyway, that was the end, but there were a lot
more happy times in between. One summer during elementary school I lived at my
uncle's house. I remember her taking me out on walks to the playground, packing
me spicy seaweed packets for my snack, and watering her garden with pee that
was collected from Jimmy’s duck shaped potty chair.
And during that year that she lived with our
family, my brother’s Cantonese dramatically improved, and then she left and it
subsequently declined. And like most grandmas that immigrated as an older
adult, she didn’t learn much English during the years that she was here. But
one phrase that William taught her that she always remembered was “I love you.”
---
So my writing took a little detour from my
original topic of detailing “how much of my life is a fluke,” but maybe it took
a better turn, and gave me the opportunity to write down our histories. I think
I’m going to make this a series, and next time I’ll talk about how my parents
ended up in America.
