Category Archives: family

Touristy day in SF

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Today was a touristy San Francisco day starting at the Coit Tower, progressing into Chinatown, visiting the Ferry Building, and ending in the Financial District and Downtown to check in and have dinner at Chris’s hotel with my parents. I think that after seeing my parents and their mood over the last three days of all four of us being together, they are definitely the happiest when they are in San Francisco. Once they leave the city, they tend to get more moody and easily annoyed. Coit Tower and the general area around it holds a special place in my dad’s heart since he grew up in Chinatown, which is right next door to it, so as a child, he visited that area almost weekly. Outside of the Richmond and the Sunset, my mom’s third favorite neighborhood is undoubtedly Chinatown. She loves finding her bargains, especially her beloved bitter melon. Oddly enough, we found out my dad to this day had never visited the Ferry Building post renovation, and so we took him there to explore. The Ferry Building has become a massive tourist attraction, one that has more than anyone’s fill of expensive and borderline overpriced shops (overpriced because they guilt you into thinking they should cost that much because they are all local businesses). I’ve always loved browsing there since my early twenties, and I still love visiting it when I’m in town, especially when it’s to have lunch or try a dessert or have Blue Bottle Coffee. My parents enjoyed it in their own way, grimacing and complaining over the high prices and how ridiculous the vendors were to charge so much. I suppose we all get excited about different things, and ridiculous, overpriced goods are what excite my parents. At least they got a free meal at the end of the day to make them really happy.

Durian

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Whenever I come home, my mom, like most moms, wants to make sure I get to eat all the things I like to eat, whether that’s food that’s homemade or store-bought. One of the things she decided to get me this time around was a big whole durian. I actually didn’t grow up eating durian and only got introduced to it as an adult. After having a literally rotten durian experience in Cambodia four years ago, I always feel a bit wary trying the fruit now. But if there’s one thing I can trust my mom to do, it’s to know when durian is good. This afternoon, she showed me how to cut it open in the most optimal way and slice out all the big pockets of durian meat. I was so intrigued by it because I’d never seen anyone do this before, so I even recorded her cutting up part of it. I helped cut part of it, but mid-way through, my mom got slightly possessive, and she insisted she cut up the rest of it. It’s an extremely prickly thus painful fruit to hold, so you have to hold a towel between you and the fruit when gripping it to cut it. This is my mom’s labor of love.

While eating the fresh durian with vanilla ice cream tonight, Chris and I looked up all the nutrition facts about this fruit. While we initially scared my dad by telling him that durian is the one fruit that actually has dietary cholesterol content, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that this “king of fruit” is very high in fiber, potassium, vitamin C, manganese, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, copper, and magnesium. I suppose the high caloric content of durian is now worth it. 🙂

“Hiking” with family

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The hiking day in Marin kind of turned out the way I expected it, meaning it pretty much got derailed. On our first trail along the Tomales Bay trail in Point Reyes National Seashore, it was quite foggy and cool, meaning that the beautiful seashore I was hoping to see was barely visible from our trail. We did, however, see deer and mule elk, and just smidgens of the ocean. It honestly wasn’t enough to make that trail worth it, though, and I certainly got that message loud and clear when about a third of the way, both my parents insisted they were too tired to continue. They complained and said the dirt path wasn’t good (even though it was extremely flat along 95 percent of it), and my mom complained that she almost fell. We probably made it about 70 percent of the trail before we decided to turn back. I really did not want to elicit the wrath of either parent on the ride to Mount Tamalpais or back into the city in the evening.

But then what really made the trip frustrating was when the gas tank of my dad’s car was about half full, and he said he needed to fill up. It was like my mom’s paranoia radar went off, and she continued to obsess over the gas and running out for the long, windy ride along Highway 1 to the gas station, and finally to the East Peak of Mount Tamalpais. We had no gas problem, but my parents made it into a needless problem to create a problem on this day trip. We took the short cut route by parking in a lot that was 0.3 miles away from the East Peak summit, and about 0.1 miles into it, my parents turned back and said they couldn’t do it anymore. On their way down, my dad loudly complained that he’s just not used to this type of activity. I could hear the complaining on my way up. When Chris and I reached the bottom and we were driving back to San Francisco, my mom insisted that they’re not as young as us, and they cannot go as far and as long. And I said to her, there are people in their 80s who are on this super short trail and they did it just fine. You can do it, too! It’s a useless argument because my mom loves to use the excuse that she’s old, therefore she cannot <fill in the blank>. She is technically 62 years old, and definitely able to walk up a bunch of wooden stairs that she refused to go up.

I would love it if my parents had a grab-life-by-the-balls attitude, if they took life as it came and didn’t complain endlessly about everything that either happened or has the potential to happen (the latter is real in my parents’ house). Why are we doing this hiking? my mom said. Because I want us to do an activity together and so we can see some good views! I respond. That was a bad response on my part, though, because my parents don’t really care much about views, and the only activity we successfully do together is eat.

Chris noticed that on the way back to the car along the trailhead, my mom was walking about twice as fast as she walked when we first started. This is how we know my mom is 120 percent capable, but she just wants to be perceived as not because she doesn’t like going outside and walking on anything that is not paved cement.

Not in that chair

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It doesn’t seem to matter how much times passes. Every time I open the door into my parents’ house, the part of my brain that apparently doesn’t register reality thinks that Ed is going to be sitting in his chair at his desk in our living room. That part of my mind thinks he will swivel his chair, turn around and see me, and then hurriedly get up to hug me and help me with my luggage. I thought this when I arrived home from the hotel this morning, turned the key, and opened the door to let myself in. He isn’t there, I saw, and a part of my  stomach just fell.

It’s not that I wanted him to be at home forever, living in this house with our parents and doing all his same usual things. But this is how I remember him. In an ideal world, he would have gotten a decent paying job and moved out years ago. In that world, when I’d come back from New York to visit, he actually would not be sitting in that chair when I would open the front door. Instead, he’d come home to see me, or I’d go to his apartment, or we’d all meet at a restaurant and reunite. So many options had the potential to exist for my brother. It just makes me sick to think that all those potential realities are now dead along with him.

Loaf on a plane

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I had left over sour cream from muffins I made a couple weeks ago, so I decided to use it up by making my favorite banana bread recipe from Boston’s Flour Bakery today. Chris asked me why I was baking the day before we’ll be away in San Francisco for a week and a half, and I said we’d just bring the loaf to my parents. He seemed displeased. He loves banana bread. “They’re not going to appreciate it, anyway,” he muttered.

He’s not all wrong in saying that. My dad’s been trying to pretend he’s super healthy since his heart surgery a year and a half ago by publicly fussing over foods like red meat and pastries. Last January when I came home, I bought scones from the Irish bakery down the block in our neighborhood, and he got mad and refused to eat them, saying they were bad for his health. Instead of eating a pastry or eggs in the morning like he might occasionally do, he’s been mixing about five different types of seed, oat bran, flax, and who knows what else, along with a heaping teaspoon of turmeric into his oatmeal. This is every single day. It looks just like vomit. Yes, I told him this.

What I want to know is – if we are all striving to have a long, healthy life, isn’t part of that life being healthy, as in, not just my heart and brain are functioning properly, but my mind is healthy and happy? Otherwise, what are we living a long life for? What are we waiting for?

“Home”

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“Have so much fun at home!” a few of my colleagues exclaimed as I was heading out on Friday. “It will be so nice for you to spend time with your parents and family!”

Home means different things to different people. Oftentimes when you tell others you are going home, it conjures up the idea of going back to the familiar, to the house or neighborhood in which you were raised in all of its relative sheltered glory. It can mean getting pampered by your parents with all of your favorite home-cooked meals, getting your mom to do your laundry for you since you’re a “special” temporary guest at the house for a finite period of time, and having whatever errands you don’t like doing done for you by your parents or siblings. It means seeing all your family and friends you grew up with again.

Usually, these feelings that “home” conjures up are happy. Colleagues think it must be happy. Friends from where you currently live think it must be relaxing for you. Well, “happy” or “relaxing” are not necessarily the first words that come to mind when I think of going back home. In fact, better adjectives to describe my feelings about going home include “conflicted,” “stressed,” “anxious,” and “torn.”

I love San Francisco. I love it even with how increasingly expensive it is becoming, despite the increasing homelessness problem that the city refuses to acknowledge or take care of, despite that neighborhoods I used to walk through look completely different today than what they were twenty years ago. What I do not love are all the unnecessary and completely made up conflicts of my family, immediate and not immediate, the senseless arguments I know will happen within days of arriving because of my mother’s twisted, negative way of looking at the world and assuming everyone is out to get her (and me, for that matter), and the awareness that every single time I go home, I know I will never see my brother again. It is a constant and inevitable reminder that he is dead, gone from this world by his own hand, and likely to get the hell away from all the undeserved, incessant criticism and torture he endured in that house on the hill we grew up in. Every moment I am there, I feel like I am waiting to get accused of doing something wrong or not doing something I should have done, or getting criticized for something about Chris or his family or both. I try to deal with it for a few blows by not saying anything, by being silent, but I’m not weak, so I cannot just sit there and take it. So of course inevitably, I will yell back and let her know I’m not going to take her made up lies and perceived hate.  I know most people say that all other (Asian) parents are kind of like this. After speaking with different families and therapists for most of my life, I know that what I face, and what my brother used to face, is quite a bit different.

What is scary, though, is that oftentimes when kids feel this way about their parents, their parents have no clue they have these feelings. Mine are included here. They think we must be excited to come home. They’re temporarily excited to have us home for the first few days. They don’t have the awareness that their excitement is temporary, though. They cannot imagine why we would not want to visit. I mean, they raised us and brought us into this world, right? We owe them. How could we not want to visit? That’s… being ungrateful. The least we could do is visit, especially since in my case, we’re not… supporting them. Maybe it’s the immigrant Asian thing. Immigrant Asians think they gave their kids a “better life” by immigrating to a Western country with supposedly better opportunities and privileges. Because they made these sacrifices, they think their kids owe them. I’ve had to think about this almost my whole life, and I still cannot quite wrap my head around these two generations reconciling this conflict fully. It doesn’t seem like it has a resolution. It’s one of those things that just goes with you to the grave.

So, all of the above is why the concept of “home” is so conflicting for me. It’s why when other colleagues who live away from home tell me they are going home, I don’t immediately make comments like, “That’s so great!” or “That’s so exciting!” or “It will be so relaxing for you!” I don’t really mind hearing comments like this directed to me because they’re just generic, and I don’t expect everyone to be aware of my dysfunctional home, nor do I expect others to be sensitive to the fact that “home” is not a happy place for everyone. When others tell me they are going home, I usually respond with a comment like, “Are you looking forward to it?” Funnily enough, a lot of times, I don’t get a positive response to that.

There are more unhappy families out there than people realize. Or, maybe people just want to live in their tiny ignorant bubbles and believe that most families are happy and seemingly functional.

Food contamination and when it’s supposedly okay

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My parents are very much stuck in their ways. They like certain cuisines (really, 2 – Cantonese Chinese and Vietnamese), they like certain restaurants, and they don’t like to try anything outside of those unless I come back home (and force them to go, which one or both of them will typically express dismay about). My mom was set on having our first meal together at a restaurant in the Tenderloin district that has received the poorest health scores in the city. It’s made even more evident to me by the fact that when I go to their Yelp business page, a pop-up warning shows up, advising me of their extremely dismal health score and to check back frequently for health score updates. That is not comforting to me.

After seeing this, I told both my parents, and my mom expressed annoyance I didn’t want to go there. “You know, no one is perfect,” my mom said defensively. “Some days will be better than others at this restaurant. It’s the same at your own house: your own house will be cleaner some days over others.”

“Yes, some days my house will be cleaner than others,” I said in response, “But I have not been known to keep contaminated meat lying around to get people sick!”

“Well, then, you can pick another restaurant that will be more expensive if you have the money for it!” she said in response.

Is that what this is about — money? Yes, this Tenderloin restaurant is cheap, and the last time I was there, the food was definitely tasty. I’ll pay for the damn bill at whatever restaurant I end up picking. That’s really not that big of a deal, otherwise, why go out to eat at all?!

“Clutter”

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My mom has asked me to print some wedding photos for her when I go home next week. I asked her why she didn’t have my dad do it because it would be simple and probably cheap at Costco, and she said she originally had him do it there, but they messed up, and she doesn’t trust my dad with these tasks. I asked my dad what went wrong, and he insisted nothing was wrong with the photos; what was wrong was that there were pictures he printed where one or both Chris and me were not looking at the camera. I told him that’s the style of the picture that my photographer was trying to do, and those were not mistakes (sigh).

“Your mom is old-fashioned,” my dad grumbled. “She needs to have photos printed and in albums. Most people nowadays don’t even print photos anymore; they just view the images on their computers or tablets!”

“Daddy, that may be true, but wedding photos are different,” I insisted. “People still like to print special pictures like that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s nice to display them in the house and in albums.”

“I guess,” he responded. “But that is just so much clutter. There’s too much clutter in the house already, and now you want to add more clutter? It’s just too much stuff!”

The conversation went on as insipidly as you can imagine, but the general gist was that I said that wedding photos, and photos in general, are not clutter; they are memories, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to display memories of happy times.

I can’t believe he implied my wedding photos are clutter.

No, wait. Yes, I can.

68th

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Today is my dad’s 68th birthday. Every year since my brother passed away, it’s hard for me to think about my dad’s birthday without thinking about my brother’s death and the fact that he’s not here. When I spoke with my primary care doctor two months ago about my dad’s heart surgery, she told me that because of the double bypass, he pretty much has a brand new heart with new vessels and should be good for at least another decade or even three if he takes good care of himself. If I were a parent, how would I feel knowing that I would outlive my son by over three decades?

I always wonder what my dad really thinks about his son’s death, if he ever looks back and wonders if he could have said something more, criticized less, spent more time with him and nurtured him. I wonder if he ever has regrets that he just refuses to share with us, or even worse, refuses to reveal to himself. It’s difficult to navigate the mind of someone who is so emotionally removed and stoic almost all the time. It will always be one of those eternal mysteries that lingers in the back of my own mind.

Morning chat

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Chris has been waking up at unGodly hours the last week or so. This morning, he decided to wake up early and include a morning chat (or late evening chat in Melbourne) with his parents. I joined the conversation when Chris put the phone on speaker at some point. We discussed our apartment search and how it resulted in us staying here, my desire for potted plants, recent work related events, and my rasgulla making project. It was jovial and fun, with the much-anticipated “Tried any good reds?” question from Chris’s dad.

“Why can’t you tell (insert annoying name that Chris calls my mom) about how the rasgulla turned out?” he said jokingly. He loves to do this.

“Because she isn’t going to care!” I shot back.

My parents don’t really care about these things unless they know what the food is. And they definitely should not be told that we were looking for a new and more expensive apartment because my parents have no real knowledge when it comes to renting property; they’ve never rented in their lives and just think everything is too expensive. These are the realities of conversations with my in-laws vs. own parents.