Roots

Dear Kids, 

I think it's time to let the cat--or should I say dog--in light of Marc's recent gift/purchase of a 2 lb. wonder dog--out of the bag. We've all read the recent article about parenting styles in America (Tiger Mothers).  Seems the Chinese/Asian parents are toughest.  Results? Their kids flood Berkley and Harvard, master the piano or violin [but not brass instruments], and literally destroy the class curve from pre-school to graduate school.

So you ask me were we "Chinese" parents or "American" pushovers? Actually Chinese--for two reasons. 

Think of our parenting style.  Telling Marcus his own body heat would warm his room; the 1x1 egress window in his room in case of fire.  And Heather's room had only half a cable of ceiling heat, which never went on till 10 p.m. [Pacific Power off-peak constraints, you remember].  Alison was surrounded by floor to ceiling books, but no egress window; Lora no heat [by choice].  You all did your own laundry from age 10--after 10 p.m., before 6 a.m. or, thankfully, on weekends [but not Sundays].

And who can forget the Home Evening wherein I all but demonstrated that you girls could get "by" with two squares of toilet paper.  "Spare a Square."  Then there was the collective "month of darkness" when I shoved our little black and white Walmart TV into the video closet because of "gross infractions" watching HBO [which remained blacked out].

Secondly, perhaps shockingly to you, Heather, Swedish girl, you are all of Chinese descent through your mother and her father, Nathan. His mother was Chinese; his father, a French plantation owner in French Indo-China. Think about it: black hair, suspiciously dark "tan" year round, and that strange grimace-grin-"smile" both he and your mother, Mama San, have in all your pictures of them.  In Chinese, such a misinterpreted "smile" is called a Sanko Hahn Bo. "Translation: "the grimace caused by sour grapes."

Let me end this, perhaps, painful revelation by a cursory inventory of Mama San's kitchen: blue willow Chinese plates, chopsticks, a wok, lots of mixed vegetables, herb tea each morning, drunk while looking out the kitchen window, hand on hip.  

If "they" should take us over in your lifetime, simply tell them, "they is us!"