母親啊,我愛你,我愛你,你真偉大

By Edith Yuh, 16 January 2013

My mother had two higher degrees, a Masters in history from UCLA and a MBA from CUNY Baruch. Because my father has a Ph.D., I grew up thinking, to the indignation of my peers in college, that everyone in the world is as highly educated as my parents are. My mother grew up with high career aspirations—she wanted a Ph.D. as well. The reason she has two Masters instead of one Ph.D. is that halfway through her Ph.D. program, she became pregnant with me. When my dad found a job in New York, she followed him there, a faithful wife and later a faithful mother. Because she wanted to invest in Ian and I as much as she can, she never had a career outside the home. During frustrating moments between my mother and me, my mom would rant about all her youthful dreams, her career goals, her academic achievements, and how she gave them all up for me. At the time, they were 耳邊風to me, but I look back now to see that my mother was the most crucial element to who Ian and I have become.

I had no doubts that my mother would have been incredibly successful in the workforce being brilliant woman that she is. Although she never pursued a career, my mother is a successful woman. Where so many people failed in history, my mother made it; she raised two children and gave them promising futures.

By the time I could speak, my mom taught me 注音符號, 漢語拼音, and a myriad of Chinese characters. She found me the best piano teachers by the time I turned five, painstakingly reminding (or fighting) me every day to practice. She taught me how to swim, signed me up for swim lessons to better my technique, found me friends to swim with when I told her I didn’t like it, and took us both there and back after school. She blended carrot-apple health concoctions while other kids were munching on cookies and sugary juices. No TV, no junk food, no computer games, ever. “You tyrant!” I accused her. But looking back, it is much easier to set a child in front of the TV and ignore her for hours, much easier to feed her rice krispies and let her body mass increase than listening to her whine. My mom labored with blood and sweat so that today, Ian can be the top of his class in the US Navy and I can be the top of my class at UC Davis. Opportunities suddenly opened up when I can swim and play music—a paid-for internship in Italy in exchange for teaching swimming, leadership in marching band, a seat in orchestra. I would have never discovered what I had passion for without my mom first introducing them to me.
In college, when my peers were giddy with freedom away from home, I never had incentive to stay at school. My mom never spent money on food for herself, but whenever I came home, she would buy me boxes of organic strawberries from the farmer’s market. At $4 a basket, I would munch away $32 in one weekend. $32 on strawberries, for someone who has scrimped and saved her whole life, is love. I grew up doing the whole family’s laundry, but when I came home from school, she would do mine, just so I could go ahead and deafen the world with my flute’s shrieking. Playing flute made me happy, so it was worth it to her to give me the freedom to pursue it. I didn’t even know until recently that many people in the world can’t stand listening to practicing.

Of course, like any other Chinese- American growing up with immigrant parents, we had our fights. She would scream in Chinese and I, in English. My mom used her extraordinary management skills to rule the household with an iron fist, “rearranging” my room for me so that I couldn’t find anything.

“媽媽,政治課本在哪裡?”
“在書架上”.

The room had four bookcases, you really didn’t answer my question”

“哪個書架?”
“就是哪個書架!!”

She would insist from the other side of the room.

“MOM I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. WHERE IS IT???”
Frustrated, she would come over, choose a bookshelf, pull out my textbook. Sometimes, the bookshelf was in the other room. “就在這裡嘛!!!!”

As trivial as these situations seem, they drove me nuts about her more than anything else ever did.

But this past summer, I went to China and saw my mom amplified in the entire culture.

“請問798 的入口在哪裡?”
“在那兒”The stranger on the street pointed to what seemed to be the sky.
“在哪兒?”
“就在那兒嘛!!!”

You mean there’s a whole culture of you that does this?!?!

As I became the outsider, I suddenly understood that what I found controlling was my mother’s way of expressing care. What I found embarrassing was her way of being courteous. I discovered that my mom loves me. She tried all she could as a Taiwanese to raise an American daughter in America, where she did things differently and where that made her wrong. To a Chinese person, where hierarchy matters and the parent is always right, this speaks volumes to her maturity and adaptability.

In 1965, America allowed the first large-scale wave of Chinese immigration since the 19th century transcontinental railroad. Our parents came on this wave, settled down, and we became the first generation of Chinese- Americans. We determine what characterizes Chinese- Americans families. Will we be marked by cultural misunderstandings? Emotional tacitness and unaddressed conflicts? Estrangement from every-day activities? Regardless of how unfathomable our parents seemed when we were growing up, we get less than one lifetime to express our appreciation for the sacrifices they made for us. Even though my mom and I labored to achieve an excellent relationship, I’ve lost any remaining opportunities to tell her how much she means to me. Relationships are now, not later, not before. On January 14, 1991, my mother gave me life, and on the same day 22 years later, she left. Her legacy, however, remains for me to pass on, and for us to remember.

媽媽，沒有你，我要怎麼辦呢？

女兒喻沛慈

你以前在一頓晚飯裡，為了配合大家不一樣的口味，你會做三種不一樣的餐，恩恩的意大利麵，我的馬鈴薯牛排，爸爸奇怪的辣豬腸子。

我每年出國不適應的時候，我只想打給你。你每次都很期待聽我的要講的故事， 而且每次都一定會接我的電話。我回來以後， 你都會陪我吃我從國外帶回來雜七雜八的糖。我們兩個吃得開開心心的，把我本來要送給朋友的糖全都吃完。但平常你都不吃糖， 你一年只吃那麼一次糖。

我跟朋友吵架時，我只能打給你抱怨。因為其他人都會講閒話，而你每次都會為我禱告。
我買完新衣服以後，回家做的第一件事就是穿給你看，叫你猜衣服的價錢。你都會說我穿的很好看，可是你從來都不會給自己買新衣服。

我需要幫忙改中文文章時，無論什麼時候打電話回家，你都會馬上幫我。你也會改我英文文章的語法。
我每次從學校回來時，你都會給我準備一碗已經洗好的，把蒂都切掉的新鮮草莓。你自己卻一顆草莓都不吃，只留給我吃。

媽媽，你是我這一生以來最大的支持，最親的安慰，最忠實的朋友。 沒有你，我要怎麼辦呢？