Authors: Cara Chow
Bitter Melon (27 page)
This is the true speech I want to deliver. But I can’t. It’s too late. I have already submitted my old speech to the judging committee.
The next day I tell Ms. Taylor after English class that I need to drop out of the competition.
“Frances, are you serious?” Ms. Taylor’s eyes shine like flashlights. “You’re the first speaker at St. Elizabeth’s to be invited to go to the state championship! You have a chance to go to nationals. The competition is tomorrow. This is not the time to quit!”
“You said that we should speak our truth,” I say. “Well, this speech no longer speaks my truth, so I can’t use it anymore.”
“Frances, think it over,” Ms. Taylor says. “I know you can do it. This is a winning speech.”
“But it’s no longer
my
speech. Remember your pep talk? You said that success is measured by others’ judgments but real success is measured by internal standards.”
“But … Look, I’m glad that you’re speaking your truth, but”—she sinks her head into her hands—“do you have to do it
now?”
She shakes her head and heaves a long sigh. Finally, she looks up at me. “Okay. Which part of your speech is no longer true?”
“All of it,” I say.
Ms. Taylor’s bright eyes search an invisible spot on her desk. She is pulling up my speech from her memory and reviewing it silently. After several seconds of silence, she says, “What if you revise parts of it to reflect your new truth?”
I start to object, but she puts up her hand to stop me.
“You don’t need to throw out the whole thing,” she says. “Start with the same question, but end with a different conclusion. Think about it. Okay?”
That night, I wait for my mom to go to bed. In the darkness, I place my old speech next to a clean sheet of paper under my desk lamp, and I begin again.
I thought that public high schools had large campuses, but they don’t compare to college campuses. This one has several buildings separated by large stretches of lawn and concrete. I have to consult a campus map to find the correct building. Eventually, I find Ms. Taylor in an auditorium-style lecture hall. At the front of the lecture hall is a large raised stage that reminds me of the CAA competition.
At about nine o’clock, the speaker assignments are posted onto the part of the stage facing us, and all the competitors
migrate towards the postings. As I walk up to the stage, I spot Derek approaching from the opposite side of the room. Without thinking, I turn away from him and face the chart. As soon as I find my room assignment and speaker order, I hurry out of the lecture hall, hoping that he didn’t see me. He is probably mad at me for not calling. I already have enough stress, worrying about my speech, without having to think about how to explain why I didn’t call. With luck, he won’t be in my first round.
Fortunately, my first round is located just down the hall, so I don’t have to worry about getting lost. The judge is a woman in her early twenties with long, straight dark hair, an olive complexion, and green eyes. She wears jeans, tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt that says
SFSU
in big block letters. I pick my usual seat off to the side. So far, there are three other speakers in the room, but I recognize only one. The others must come from different parts of California.
Then Derek enters. My heart beats faster as he approaches. Instead of picking a seat near mine, as he usually does, he moves to one on the opposite side of the room. This only confirms my suspicion that he is angry with me.
The first speaker delivers a powerful speech about his parents’ involvement in the civil rights movement and the legacy of that movement today. When Derek is called to speak next, my heart starts pounding again. Usually, he makes eye contact with me from time to time while delivering his speech. But this time, he doesn’t look at me at all.
They don’t call this the state championship because the
competition is weak. The following two speakers are also excellent. For the first time, I cannot even be 100 percent sure that Derek will win. And here I am, test-driving a revised speech.
As with death, my number comes up eventually and it is my turn to go. I assume a kamikaze attitude as I march to the front of the room. I push Derek out of my mind and recite the first half of my speech as I usually do.
“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.”
I am approaching the edge of the cliff. Looking over the edge, I take a deep breath and jump.
“But this sacrifice does not come for free. In return, I am expected to get straight As, so I can get into UC Berkeley.”
Derek shoots me a startled look.
“I am expected to go on to medical school or journalism school,”
I continue.
“Afterwards, I am expected to embark on a successful career, so that my future income will support her and she won’t have to work and suffer anymore. When I feel tired or daunted by my quantity of schoolwork, I am
expected to 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.”
Derek fixes me with his piercing stare.
“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. Are they? Here is what my mother would say. 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
.
“That is my mother’s answer to that question. What is mine?”
The air becomes thin. I am gasping for what little oxygen is left in the room. This time, I cannot blame Sally Meehan for my stage fright. My nemesis is within. I look to Derek. He nods slowly.
“On paper, the Confucian way looks good,”
I continue.
“But it has one fatal flaw. It assumes that the authority figures are always just. What if that assumption is wrong? What if their judgments are wrong? What if their expectations are unrealistic or unfair? What if they are selfish or dishonest? Under those circumstances, should the people they lead still follow them?
“In a perfect world, one can be both an individual and a member of a family or community. One can choose both what is good for the self and what is good for the family. But in real life, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes choosing one means choosing against the other. Then the question of whether to choose one’s family at the expense of oneself or oneself at the expense of one’s family has no easy answer. It is like choosing whether to cut off one’s right hand or one’s left hand. It is like having to decide whether to save your drowning mother, knowing that you may both drown, or swimming to shore alone, knowing that you can only save yourself. If that is your dilemma, which way is right? Which way would you choose?”
I look down, signaling the end of my speech. When I look back up at my audience, everyone is giving me a blank stare, including the judge. Several seconds pass in silence. Then, slowly, Derek begins to applaud. One by one, others in the room also clap but with lukewarm hands.
When the round is over, I keep my head down as I exit the room, as if doing so can make me shrink and disappear.
I find out later that I placed dead last in the first round. In the second and third rounds, I place fourth, which is second to last. I don’t even make the cut to the semifinal round.
It’s three o’clock, and for the first time, I am going home from a competition before dark. Ms. Taylor and I exit the lecture hall and make our way to the bus stop. Outside, the sky is overcast, but there is no wind. I am unable to look at Ms. Taylor. I just stare at the concrete under my feet as we walk.
“You okay?” she asks me. Her voice is like cool water on a burn.
“Sorry,” I say.
“About what?”
“About losing. About letting you down.”
“What did I say about success and winning?” she reminds me.
Suddenly, I hear someone behind me calling my name. I turn around and see Derek several feet away, running up to us. He is the one spot of sunshine in a landscape of gray. When he finally catches up, he is bent over and breathing heavily.
“Derek, are you all right?” Ms. Taylor asks.
Derek waves his hand, brushing off her concern. “My fault,” he says. “Should’ve studied harder in PE.”
Unsure of why he has run after us, Ms. Taylor and I wait for Derek to explain. Meanwhile, Derek’s eyes shift nervously back and forth between Ms. Taylor and me. Finally, he says to me, “Have a minute?”
I look at Ms. Taylor, who looks at Derek and gives me a knowing smile before continuing towards the bus stop. As she walks away, I expect Derek to ask why my speech is different or to console me on my loss. Instead, he asks, “Are you mad at me about something?”
“No. Why would I be mad at you?” I ask.
“I don’t know. You seem to be avoiding me.”
“Oh.” I blush, remembering my overreaction earlier this morning. “I was worried that you might be mad at me.”