Authors: Cara Chow
Bitter Melon (20 page)
“Mrs. Ching.” Ms. Taylor is waving and walking towards us. She is all in black, black blouse and blazer to match her black pants, platform boots, and glasses. She looks businesslike, with an artsy edge. She reaches for Mom’s hand with her winners smile and says, “I’m so happy that you made it.”
Mom smiles back. “Thank you for inviting me.” Though Mom is smiling, instead of happiness, all I see are teeth. “I must thank you for all you’ve done for Frances.”
“That’s very kind, but honestly, Frances’s accomplishments have more to do with Frances than with me,” Ms. Taylor says. Then she turns to Theresa. “Where are your parents?”
“My dad’s out of town on business, and Mom is looking for parking,” Theresa says.
“Well, let’s go backstage to prepare,” Ms. Taylor says to Theresa and me. Mom begins to follow us, but Ms. Taylor stops her. “You can sit in any of those chairs,” she says to Mom. “The competition will be starting in about twenty minutes.” Ms. Taylor smiles graciously to soften her words. Mom nods, but in her eyes, I detect the slightest glare. As the three of us walk backstage, I can feel my mother behind us, her hot eyes boring into my back as we abandon her.
In the room behind the stage, Ms. Taylor is doing her pre-competition huddle with Theresa and me. I am familiar with her speech about inner versus outer success, but this time, she adds something new.
“I know it’s hard, but try to forget that your mothers are out there.” Ms. Taylor notices the skeptical looks on our faces. “Okay, think of it this way. Even if you totally bomb, they won’t love you any less. They’re your mothers. They love you unconditionally. That means for who you are, not what you do.”
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the idea of unconditional love outside the context of religion. In theology class, I always hear about God’s love, about his loving us even though we’re sinners. But the idea that real live parents could be unconditionally loving is completely foreign. Often Mom and other Chinese parents say
“dai sek.” “Dai sek”
describes children who are polite or affectionate, who excel in school, who serve their parents before themselves at banquets, or who send money back home. How can anyone be loved not for what they do but for who they are? Isn’t who you are defined by what you do?
The lights in the room dim and brighten. This is our signal to line up for the cattle call. Theresa is assigned to be speaker number ten out of twelve. The only assignment worse than number ten is mine, number eleven.
Ms. Taylor leaves with the other coaches to sit in the audience as the competitors form a single line in reverse speaking order. The speaker in front of me is probably the tallest Chinese person I have ever seen. He is well over six feet tall. My eyes come up only to the shoulder blade portion of his argyle sweater. His hands remind me of baseball mitts. His coarse, straight hair sticks out in all directions. We march onto the stage to our chairs. Theresa and I sit as Ms. Taylor told us to, with our ankles crossed and knees together. Onstage, one must sit discreetly when wearing a skirt. Within minutes, my inner thighs are trembling from fatigue.
As I watch and listen to the speeches, I can’t help feeling a growing sense of smugness. As Ms. Taylor said, there are no Derek Collinses here. None of my competitors has my writing skills or stage presence. A couple even have Cantonese or Taiwanese accents. No one else here could make the semifinal cut in a mainstream competition. Not only can I place, I can probably win by a landslide. Finally, Mom won’t be able to compare me to someone else and say that that person is better than me.
Before I know it, it is Theresa’s turn. Theresa takes mincing steps towards the front of the stage. She bows her head, then looks out at the audience and begins. Her voice is quiet and
shaky at first, as if she is fearful of taking up space in the room. Then, gradually, she picks up momentum. Her body becomes less crouched and more open, even taller. Her voice becomes less mouselike and more audible. She stutters less. At the end, I can sense that she’s smiling, even though her back is towards me. Then she bows her head again, signaling the end of her speech. Applause follows.
Suddenly, I hear shrill whistling from the back of the audience. Nellie is standing up alone in the sea of seated people, clapping and cheering one moment and whistling through her fingers the next. “Good job! Good job, Theresa!” she screams as she jumps up and down. With all her whistling and screaming, her hot pink attire seems only appropriate. My first reaction is embarrassment. Here Theresa is trying to make a good impression, and her mother is ruining it with her unrefined public behavior. I look at Theresa to exchange commiserating glances. But instead of being embarrassed, Theresa looks pleased. She locks gazes with her mom and smiles. Then she smiles at me as she walks to her chair and sits down.
Now it is my turn to begin. I stand up and take my position. I look out at the audience and remember my long-ago fantasy about speaking onstage. Strangely, this moment echoes my daydream. I am onstage. In the audience, Ms. Taylor is sitting in the front, and Mom and Nellie are in the back.
Then my thoughts dart back to my first speech competition, when Derek helped me. I picture him nodding at me, encouraging me to go on. This gives me confidence, and I begin.
“Recently, in
Newsweek,
there was an article titled ‘Asian American Whiz Kids.’ The article noted the high success rate of Asians in academics. It posed the question of why Asians are so successful. Is it genetics or is it due to social factors? Or are nonimmigrant students merely doing less well than their predecessors? Have they grown complacent? I would argue that the success rate of Asians in academics does not stem from superior genetics, but rather from a set of values that includes education and loyalty to family
.
“Probably the best example to illustrate this is my own family. When I was three, my family left a comfortable life in Hong Kong to come to America. Britain would return Hong Kong back to China in 1997, and my mother wanted me to grow up in the land of opportunity and democracy
.
“A few years later, my mother was forced to raise me alone. We were in a foreign country, with no money, no job, and no family to help us. For my mother, the easy way out would have been to return to Hong Kong. But she was determined to give her only child a better life. So she worked four part-time jobs, serving cocktails, proctoring tests, and filing for law firms, while taking evening ESL classes. Eventually, when her English skills improved, she got a job working full-time as a bank teller. She believed that I could get a better education in a private school, and she wanted to save for college, so she worked her way up to customer service representative and worked overtime and sometimes double time in order to afford the tuition.”
Suddenly, everything I am saying about my mother feels much more real, even though I’ve said the same words many times. For a moment, I get choked up. I take a deep breath and continue.
“She has stayed at the same job for the last fifteen years, giving her best in spite of poor health, unforgiving customers, unreasonable managers, meager raises, and increased workloads due to mergers and layoffs. Every day she misses her family and friends in Hong Kong, but she never visits and she seldom calls. Any dollar spent on airfare or the phone bill would be a dollar siphoned from my tuition. My mother endures these hardships because she believes in my education. She always said that education was the most important thing. It is the key to greater wisdom. It is also the key to achieving the American Dream
.
“This is why she pushes me to strive for greater goals and never to rest on my laurels. This is why she emphasizes focusing on academics and forgoing the distractions of after-school jobs and dating. This is why she insists on doing all the housework, though she is exhausted every day after work, leaving me more time to study and do my best.”
How is my mother reacting to what I am saying about her? Is she moved? I want to sneak a peek at her face, but I’m too afraid.
“My mother’s perseverance and hard work are an example and inspiration to me,”
I continue.
“After I graduate from high school, I hope to attend a top university.”
I almost say “UC Berkeley,” which is what I had written before applying to Scripps, but fortunately, I catch myself in time.
“Afterwards, I plan to attend medical school and become a doctor. My medical knowledge will improve her health. My future income will support her, so she won’t have to work and suffer anymore. When I feel tired or daunted by my quantity of schoolwork, I remember that my hardship can’t be half as hard as my mother’s and that someday, when my hard work pays off, so will hers
.
“I suspect that how my mother and I feel may be how other Asian immigrant families feel as well. Why do we think this way? Where do these values come from? Much of our sensibilities about family and education come from Confucianism. Confucius taught that the remedy for social chaos was for each individual to live a virtuous life and to follow the moral
‘dao,’
or way. His instructions on what constituted moral behavior were based on relationships between emperor and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, and elder friend and younger friend. The former had to provide just leadership and good example. In return, the latter had to respect and obey the former and never usurp his authority. In so doing, members of society could maintain harmony with each other and with the heavens
.
“Most American teens would find these expectations to be oppressive. In the pursuit of individualism and focus on the self, they have lost focus on their families and feel no obligation to reciprocate their parents’ financial and emotional investment. They care more about their peers’ opinions than their parents’. Parents defer to their
children instead of the other way around, so they don’t discipline or push them. Nothing is denied to them. As a result, they become complacent. Their energies become diffused, even stagnated. This is true not only of American teens but of American society. We are currently the richest and most powerful country in the world. Meanwhile, Japan is creating better technology, and European countries are planning to consolidate their economies. At the top, where life is comfortable, where else can America go but down?
“Fortunately, America is still the land of opportunity, not only for those who have been here for generations but also for newcomers. With other cultures come other ideas, newer and better ways of doing things. The drive, talents, and success of immigrants should not be seen as a threat but rather as a source of inspiration. We represent the changing face of America, a new horizon that recedes as we reach further and further towards progress
.
“But our success should not be measured only by test scores, college attendance, or annual income. My mother would not be seen by most as successful. She is not featured in
Forbes
or
Fortune.
But where would the suited figures on the covers be without workers like her? Where would our heroes be had they not had parents to guide them? When President Bush speaks about the thousand points of light, I think about my mother and others like her, who make up the backbone of our families and the foundation of our country. Thanks to them, our future is still bright.”
Then I bow my head, as Ms. Taylor taught me, signaling the end of my speech. With my eyes closed, I feel the rumbling of
applause, which builds to a loud crescendo. I open my eyes and see everyone looking up at me, their hands coming together enthusiastically. Then I look at Ms. Taylor. She nods at me as she claps, as if to say,
You did it
. I smile back with pride.
Then I look at my mother. She has a strange look in her eyes. Her hands are coming together much more slowly than the others’. Unlike Nellie, she isn’t standing or cheering. Did she like my speech or did she hate it? Is she proud or disappointed?
The last speaker gets up from his chair. The way he walks reminds me of a tree that may fall over. I expect his speech to be as awkward as his gait until he begins speaking. His voice is deep and sonorous. I can see him singing bass in an opera. His speech is about Asian stereotypes and the lack of Asian American representation in sports and the media. This topic will appeal to the judges, who are Asian Americans in the media. To make matters worse, his speech is well written, and he is confident and likeable. To further seal my doom, he is the final speaker, the one who will leave the judges with the lasting impression.
Stutter, trip over your lines
, I think.
Just as I think this, he stops. A long pause ensues as he struggles to remember his next sentence. I notice the slightest tremor in his knees. He makes a couple of false starts, stuttering a little, before finding his way and continuing.
Suddenly, I remember the brown-haired girl in my first competition. I remember Sally Meehan and her eye rolling. I flush hot with shame, as if everyone in the audience can hear my thoughts.
The last speaker finishes his speech without further problems. Afterwards, all the speakers assemble with the coaches in the back room. Ms. Taylor embraces Theresa. “Look at what you’ve done. I knew you could do it,” she says to Theresa. Then she wraps an arm around me. “Excellent as always, but this time I felt an extra oomph in your delivery. You definitely got ’em hooked.” I am glad that she’s pleased, but if I did so great, how come I don’t get a hug too?
We wait for what feels like a half hour. What’s taking the judges so long? Finally, the lights dim and brighten again, and we assemble back at our seats onstage for the awards assembly. The trophy table has been moved onto the stage. The vice president of the Chinese American Association is standing behind the podium, and his assistant is standing behind the trophies.
“Third place,” the VP announces, “Tiffany Haffner!”
I look at Tiffany, the first speaker. She has Asian features but hazel eyes, light brown hair, and freckles. It never occurred to me that someone who’s half could count as Chinese.