tsunami: far away, yet close to home

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I was expecting the usual 11 o’clock news last Thursday, but instead -- breaking news: earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I watched in horror, mesmerized by the blurry image of the amoeba-like blob moving across the screen, gathering up everything in its path. It was like a supersized, real-life, pancaked version of the Japanese video game, “We Love Katamari,” where a giant ball rolls around swallowing up cows, cars, people, etc. The real-life version paralyzes me. I try to focus on the little map they show on the screen, trying to pinpoint where the devastation is in relation to where my cousins, aunts and uncles live. I am relieved to see that the tsunami has not impacted the areas where I think my family would be, but it is still unnerving to watch. I fall asleep with images of the scary blob replaying in my head.

The next day is not any better. Tsunami coverage has gone local, as the tsunami has actually crossed the Pacific and has landed on the West Coast. I watch footage of some boats being tossed around and a dock being pushed out of the water, thinking it is new film from Japan; then, I realize it is showing Santa Cruz, just down the coast from here. Further north, I would later learn that a young man was swept away to his death while he was trying to take photos of the tsunami. So preventable. So sad. I hope they don't report this in Japan, since it would just confirm the stereotypes of Americans doing stupid, inappropriate things; on the other hand, I guess this is one reason for that stereotype existing in the world outside the U.S. I am guessing this little tidbit of news will not make it into the rotation on NHK, since they have much more pressing matters to report on right now.

One thing that I had not thought about but that my husband heard one commentator report on was that the Japanese people -- typically polite and civilized as a general rule -- have become even more so during this crisis. She observed pedestrians in Tokyo still waiting patiently for the green “walk” light, even though the cars on the street were clearly not moving in the post-quake gridlock. People lined up at stores, in the usual, orderly fashion. Food and water were reportedly scarce in Tokyo, as people who worked in the city were unable to leave, and yet, they lined up. As one reporter put it: “The people of Japan have handled this in a dignified, lawful, civilized fashion.”

In Japan, I am guessing this is not news. Being civilized and lawful in a time of crisis is simply not news: it is expected, understood, a given. This is something that would only be reported outside of Japan. It made me wonder what would happen here in a big city -- San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York -- under similar circumstances. Would we be civilized? Or would people resort to opportunistic behavior? I hope we never have to experience such a disaster to find out.

Curse of the Tiger Other

When I first heard all the media hype and parental chatter about the “Tiger Mother,” I just wanted to wait it out until it all blew over. I didn't want to write about it for fear of what I would say. That is, until Denene Millner asked me to write about it for her blog, My Brown Baby.

“She’s a nut job ... and, she’s a genius, because she is making a lot more money off of this book than she is from being a law professor!” That’s how a friend of mine summed up her take on Amy Chua’s Wall Street Journal article, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” and I would have to say I agree with her.

I was surprised at how much attention this topic got from the mainstream media, but I was even more surprised by the reaction of Asian Americans. There seemed to be two camps: those who were immediately enamored with Chua and treated her like a celebrity, and those of us who just groaned and muttered, “Here we go again.” Since Asian American “celebrities” are relatively few and far between, I understand Chua’s taking on this rock star status for some. She was getting all kinds of press, and she didn’t even have to do any martial arts moves! She did, however, resort to the usual mystical “Oriental” lingo that is so plentiful in stereotypes of Asian Americans. Chua -- although born in Illinois and raised in Berkeley, California -- decided to call herself a Tiger Mother. I guess Dragon Lady was already taken, but seriously, do we need any more stereotyping than we already have? Couldn’t we be content with simply being overachieving and studious, without also being overbearing and crazy?

Unfortunately, you can’t unring a gong. We had been other-fied, once again, and by one of “us,” no less. Decades of civil rights activism fighting for Asian Americans to be recognized as Just Americans – poof! Decimated, like so many tiny fluttering cherry blossoms flying into a tsunami. One racially charged Wall Street Journal headline, and we were, once again, reduced to foreign freaks, something other than American. Other-fied.

Ironically, all of this Tiger Mother hype was happening right around January 30, 2011, which marked the first Fred Korematsu Day in California. Korematsu was a Bay Area native who defied Executive Order 3066 and refused to report to be placed in an internment camp during WWII. Korematsu’s legacy was to stand up for his rights as an American citizen, regardless of his Japanese ancestry. One of my favorite photos of Korematsu shows him with Rosa Parks, both aged and smiling, two regular folks who became heroes in their communities. I thought of my Chinese American mother-in-law, who, I was once told, used to wear a button that read “I am Chinese” so that she would not be mistaken for Japanese or Japanese American during the war. And now, here we were in 2011, with a Chinese American emphasizing that she is so un-“Western” and so very different and “Chinese.” And in today’s political and economic climate, being considered “Chinese” is not necessarily a good thing. Chua’s book release seemed perfectly timed to coincide with Obama’s reference to our country’s current Sputnik moment – and, based on Chua’s terminology, all of the “Western” parents’ kids will be competing right here at home with the kids of all those crazy “Chinese” parents.

Before all of this Tiger Mother business, I had convinced myself that we were doing pretty well, finally getting some mainstream TV facetime on Lost, Glee, Hawaii-Five 0 and the AT&T commercials. I hadn’t heard “ching chong ching chong” uttered by some little white boy in my carpool in, oh, four years now. Maybe we were finally being viewed as Just Americans. And then, out of nowhere ... the Tiger Mother! All of those old fears that my kids would be stereotyped and not recognized as individuals have risen to the surface again. I worry that my Chinese-surnamed children will be viewed as “Chinese” and not “real Americans.” Just Chinese. Chua’s book has given birth to a new stereotype that would impact all of our children, and it would last far longer than one media cycle. In the world of college admissions, there is already an “Asian tax” where Asian American students appear to have a tougher admissions standard to meet, and this perception that a student’s achievements were because of “Tiger” parents – and not the student’s own drive and intellect – will serve only to create yet another reason to justify non-admission in higher education. Hurray.

When I talked with my like-minded Asian American mom and dad friends, we made sure to have our conversations in private. Our town is predominantly white, and Chua’s article caused quite a buzz. It was even mentioned in our local paper, in a column written by the mother of one of my daughter’s classmates. By the end of the column, she conveyed that she felt both validated and threatened by Tiger Mothers and their kids, and had confirmed my theory that Chua’s article had other-fied us, stating in her closing that this was clear evidence of a “cultural divide.” I also confirmed that others assumed that I am a Tiger Mother -- or, maybe there was some other reason that the moms sitting behind me at a school function who starting talking about the article decided it was best to quickly hush each other when they realized I was sitting right in front of them. I found myself relieved, not really wanting to overhear what they thought about this topic; after all, regardless of what they thought, it would not change the fact that I would be interacting with them in the future, since our kids are the same age in a small community.

In private, we talked about the Tiger Mother setback for our kids and Asian Americans, in general. We discussed how this would impact our kids' futures, and how -- ironically -- they would now have to work even harder to overcome the stereotype that they are "just" hard workers. Coincidentally, my Asian American friends and their kids are all academically high achievers. Also, coincidentally, none of us thinks of ourselves as “Tiger” parents, nor did we have overbearing, micromanaging parents ourselves. Our parents were too busy working to hover over us. We were all self-motivated -- the unspoken expectation of our parents’ generation being enough to make us strive for good grades and assume we could get them. As a parent, I struggled to find a way to pass this on to my kids. They were growing up in a different kind of community, with different community standards than I grew up with, and peers whose families complained about the schools giving grades at all. I was finally confronted with the issue when my son made the observation, “You know, Mom, a ‘B’ is a perfectly good grade, too.” I agreed, and then asked, “But why would you not want to at least try get an ‘A?’ We know not all kids can get ‘A’’s – but we know you are capable of getting an ‘A.’” He pondered for a split second, and replied, “Good point.” Then he went back to his room to study. After that, he seemed to get it. He wanted the A’s, and he would do what was needed to at least try to get them.

If there is a “style” of parenting that I subscribe to, I suppose I would sum it up as Parenting Based on Expectations and Having Standards. That doesn’t have a very good ring to it, though, so maybe we should call it “Bamboo Parenting Style” since we expect to build up our kids to have strength, being able to bend and not break.  Or, even better, “Turtle-Dragon Style” because we assume quiet diligence unless there is injustice and the dragon is awakened! I am just kidding, of course. I am sure there are plenty of non-Asian American families who parent the same way. Instead of labeling it as something mystical and foreign, let’s just say it is one style of American parenting.

I did get one major bonus out of this Tiger Mother business, for which I owe Chua my gratitude. Her article showed my kids that I am totally reasonable, even though they had previously commented that I was “strict compared to other parents.” Now, I look like a complete lightweight! And, I will confess, I have gotten some validation out of that. I’m not crazy. At least, not compared to that Tiger Mother. Hear me roar.

photo credit: Shirley Nakao, courtesy of the Korematsu Institute

monday hearts

Every Monday, I get a little bit of sunshine in my email inbox from Page Hodel. We knew her back-in-the-day as the one and only DJ Page who my boyfriend and I danced to at the clubs in San Francisco. She is still spinning, but I don't get out dancing anymore, so I was delighted to find out that I could still experience her creativity with her Monday Hearts for Madalene, her touching tribute to her love, Madelene Rodriguez. I look forward to opening this email every week, and I thought I would share some of the images with you today. Happy Monday!!!

If you would like to brighten up your Mondays, please go to MondayHeartsforMadalene.com.

Happy Girls Day

Today is Girls Day in Japan, otherwise known as hinamatsuri. My daughter reminded me that it was Girls Day, thank goodness, since I forgot about it last year! It's nice to know that she thinks of it as a special day.

Sakura-mochi on the sakura-inspired plate my daughter made in ceramics class ... and my daughter's princess and prince dolls we got in Hakata, Japan, near where my parents grew up.

Now that I finally remembered to put the dolls up, it is almost time to take them down! Japanese superstition says that if your dolls are displayed for too long after Girls Day, the girl will take a long time to get married. On second thought, maybe we'll keep the dolls out for a while ... I don't think we are in any hurry for her to grow up and get married!

Asian Mainstream

She peered out at me from under a Shinto headdress, dark eyes glistening against the pale backdrop of her face. She gazed down at me without blinking, her lips the color of ... actually, she had no lips. Hello Kitty has no lips. And here she was, dressed in a traditional Japanese bride’s costume. Yours for only $5.99 at McDonald’s -- not just any Mickey D’s, but Mickey D’s in Maui. I ordered my Breakfast Combo -- Portuguese Sausage, Eggs and Rice -- and my Hello Kitty doll, and could barely contain my joy.

Ahh, yes. The feeling of coming home, only better. Hawaii is like a crossroads, the birthplace of Asian America. I am thinking all of this as I watch my four-year-old son splashing in the pool. “I love Hawaii!” exclaims Miles, wearing his new swimsuit with built-in floats, “swimming” unfettered for the first time in his life. His joy is so genuine, I wish I could just bottle it up for him to use whenever he needs it in the future. Alas, I have not figured out how to do that ... but I have finally figured out how to work the camcorder, so I settle on videotaping his joy for future reference.

I love Hawaii, too. I realized during this trip that Hawaii brings me a sense of freedom as well, a feeling of instantly being “normal.” It’s the little things, really. Like taking your shoes off when you enter a house, even before you read the signs asking you to take off your shoes. Like going to Costco and finding industrial sized packages of li hing mui, nori, dried cuttlefish, and a book called, The Musubi Man, where a ball of rice gets chased around the island as he yells, “Run, run, fas’ as you can, you no can catch me, I’m the Musubi Man!” Like going to the McDonald’s, where you can order local food like the Chicken Katsu Mini-Plate Lunch Meal or a Portugese Sausage, Eggs and Rice breakfast meal, asking for some shoyu and getting it -- without having to explain that “shoyu" means “soy sauce.” And where Hello Kitty wedding couples come dressed in traditional Japanese, Korean, and Chinese costumes.

And it’s the big things, too. Like noticing that the news desk is anchored by two Asian Americans. And, not just two Asian Americans, but two Asian American men. This is unheard of anywhere else in the country, I’m sure. We have grown to expect maybe one Connie Chung-type female anchor on many newscasts, and perhaps a few Asian American men out in the field, but never have I seen two Asian American men on a news broadcast at the same time. As if that’s not enough, they are covering such topics as the U.S. submarine collision with a Japanese fishing boat, and the landing of a U.S. spyplane in China. And nobody’s questioning their loyalties, even though they have last names that are Japanese and Chinese. They cover another big story, the teachers’ strike -- where the professors from the University of Hawaii are on the picket lines just as the elementary school teachers in the Upcountry -- and I notice that all the union leaders, all the teachers, and even the governor (the “bad guy” in this stand-off) are all Asian American. And, they're wearing aloha shirts, not suits and ties, because that’s what you wear to work on Friday -- “aloha Friday” -- in Hawaii. (Oh, and you thought “casual Friday” was a mainland concept?)

Coming home to a place where I’ve never lived, where Asians are the mainstream.

I indulge for a week in this fantasy, where I can feel like I am part of the empowered, and the foods I was raised on are part of the local vocabulary, even if their origins are Japanese. When it’s finally time to head home, I pack up my Hello Kitty dolls -- one Korean, one Chinese, and one Japanese -- hoping to someday be able to buy them at the Mickey D’s down the street. A few weeks after we get home, our neighborhood McDonald’s has their Hello Kitty promotion -- “the crew” Hello Kitty wedding dolls, all decked out in their McDonald’s uniforms. On their wedding day. Sigh. I guess I’ll have to plan another trip to Maui ... for Hello Kitty, and my own sense of home.



This is a flashback post circa 2001 -- something I wrote before this blog existed.

The Amazing Race, part 2

The phone rang in our hotel room; it was my niece, Kelsey: “I’m hungry – let’s go out and get something to eat. There’s a strip mall across the street; I can see it from my room.” Apparently, the next leg of the Amazing Race would involve feeding the five of us armed only with my niece’s Lonely Planet phrasebook app.

We met her downstairs, and made our way across the street in the darkness, navigating around some large lion/dog statues and a moat. What we found sitting where the strip mall should be was definitely not a strip mall. It was a handful of shops on a small street adjacent to our relatively monstrous hotel. The five of us peered into the storefronts, sizing up the food establishments and wondering why a beauty salon would be open so late. There were basically two choices, restaurant #1 or restaurant #2. “This one looks a little more lively ... let’s go here.” Thankfully, Kelsey was not only hungry, she was also very decisive.

We walked into the well-lit, informally furnished restaurant, and an older gentleman and a very young woman spoke to us in Chinese – which we did not understand – and walked us over to a table, handing us five menus.

I flipped through the menu and quickly realized none of it was in English, and there were no pictures to help us out. I looked up at the gentleman and said, pathetically, “English?”

The gentleman looked at me for a split second, then turned to my Chinese American husband and said what we all took to be “English?!!! What?!!! Are you kidding me? You look Chinese, don’t you speak Chinese?”

To which my husband replied, in English: “No.”

The man burst out laughing, thrust the menus and notepad into the hands of the young woman, and said, “Ha ha ha!!! Here you go, sweetie, you take care of them – you are studying English now at school, right? English! Ha ha ha!”

The young woman’s eyebrows rose into an unhappy, worried rainbow as she started asking us what we would like to order. I looked at the menu again, trying to decode based on my limited knowledge of Japanese kanji. Well, that has meat in it, so does that one, and that has fish ... hmmmm ...

Not wanting to wait for me to decipher the menu, the young woman proceeded to talk to us in Chinese, which to me sounded like, “something something something jiao zu something something ...” Wait. I know that word. I practically jumped out of my chair with excitement and blurted out, “Jiao zu! Yes! Jiao zu! We want that!” I had recognized a word that was somehow embedded in my memory, thanks to Ben Sun and Alex Te circa 1982, when they told me that “jiao zu” was the Mandarin word for the Japanese “gyoza.”

The waitress seemed unfazed by my enthusiasm and continued talking. “What kind?” is what we think she was asking. She walked me over to a chart on the wall, which I assumed was a pricelist of the various types of dumplings with brief descriptions. Unfortunately, I could not recognize any characters beyond “meat,” “fish,” and “leaf,” so we are not sure what to do next. I look up at Kelsey, and we simultaneously noticed that they were plating up some dumplings for another table, so we both pointed and said, “That! We want that!”

Luckily, pointing is a universally understood gesture. The waitress took our order and we sat down to wait for our food. There were a couple of kittens running around, eating peanut shells and other scraps that were on the floor. A toddler roamed about, his little tushy peeking out from his special potty-training pants, reaching up to a table and helping himself to a half-empty glass of beer and some nuts. We were guessing he was the child of somebody who was working there, since none of the customers seemed to be concerned about this. We took our cues and tried not to act alarmed. I turned off my Mommy Reflex and watched with amusement. If there were any health code or child welfare violations here, nobody seemed to be worried about it, so I wouldn’t, either.

I start to comment that the dumplings look like those Shanghai dumplings that we used to get at Wu Kong in San Francisco or at Shandong in Oakland ... when I realize that we are in Shanghai so of course we are getting Shanghai dumplings! Wow. We were really here, half-way around the world.

Our food came out pretty quickly, and the dumplings were delicious. Although we must have been somewhat of a curiosity to the other patrons, nobody seemed to be bothered by us, and it was nice to just blend in (well, as long as we didn’t try to say anything). My family was nourished and happy. We had successfully complete this leg of the race.

The Amazing Race, part 1

We were finally ready for our trip to Shanghai. Well, as ready as I was going to be. The house was not spic-n-span the way I would like it to be, but this has been an elusive fantasy of mine for years now. The kids pitched in and vacuumed and tidied up, though, so it is in better shape than it was, and it was much easier to use the vacuum with the puppy at the boarder's (instead of barking maniacally at the vacuum with every stroke). We made a stop at the mailbox to pay for dance lessons and basketball, the middle school to pick up assignments the teacher neglected to give our daughter, and almost stopped for gas since we were running low. Got through the Bay Bridge toll plaza and muddled through the City on our way to Park n Fly, the first leg of the Amazing Race, Woo Family Edition.

For our next task, we must feed a family of four at the SFO eateries that line the concourse. I went with my son to Andale ... which, ironically, took a really long time to prepare his burrito. I started eating my ginormous Chicken Caesar Wrap, under the watchful gaze of my hungry son. I gave him half, although he did not eat it all, because he was still looking forward to his burrito. Tick tock, tick tock. Fortunately, the burrito emerged from behind the counter, and my son's ability to eat his food really fast was put to good use. It is still strangely satisfying to watch him devour his food, even while I am wondering how it will ever digest in his tummy.

In spite of my stressing out about being late due to burrito-waiting, we make it to the gate with plenty of time before boarding. We find our aunt, uncle and cousin there, looking very leisurely, as if they had arrived three hours before the flight, as recommended by the airline. My husband and daughter were already there, having gotten their lunches to-go, and eating in the waiting area. Boarding is uneventful. We walk by the Business Class section wistfully, and settle into Economy. I believe its code is "Y," and flying this trip on United, I began to understand why this is. I had many "Y" moments during the trip. "Y" is there no individual screen to entertain me on this flight, even though ANA, JAL and KAL all have that in Economy class? "Y" does my seat not recline properly? "Y" is the flight attendant's rear end bumping me in the face, again? "Y" is the food so bad? I was not prepared to feel so "Y"-ney about everything, but this was the worst overseas flight I had been on. It actually made me wish there were size restrictions on flight attendants. I am not proud that I had this thought, but I did. I suppose it is a natural reaction to being woken up by a flight attendant's butt bumping into your row repeatedly, just as you were dozing off to dreamland. Sigh.

Many hours later, we landed safe and sound in Shanghai. I love you, United Airlines, for delivering us safely to our destination. In the end, safety trumps discomfort on a flight. After getting our luggage, we push our carts through the passageway of drivers and guides holding signs with travelers' names on them. We were told that the local guide would be holding a sign with my husband's name on it, so we scanned the crowd expectantly. Nothing. We went back and scanned again, this time looking at the signs written in Chinese, too. Still nothing. Aunt Chrissy had the local phone number of the tour company, but none of us had a phone that was equipped to make calls in China. My niece, Kelsey, who had arrived a few hours earlier from Chicago, went over to the young men stationed at the World Expo information table, and they let her make a phone call -- which did not make a difference, anyway, since nobody answered. Things were starting to look grim. Finally, a woman named Megi -- who had been holding a sign that read "Champion Tours," with nobody's name on it at all -- came up to Uncle Leo, the most "American"-looking of all of us, to see if he was looking for a guide. She had apparently noticed the rest of us pacing back and forth along the row of sign-holders, but didn't think to ask us if we were her group. At least things were not so grim anymore. We piled into a micro-bus and made it to our hotel about an hour away from the Shanghai city center.

Finally, we had arrived at our destination.