Thank goodness I'm Chinese.
The window of opportunity between New Year's and Chinese New Year has always given me an excellent, extra grace period in which to ramp up for the new year, and I always need it. Damon has three families, all of whom have super intense holiday traditions, plus my family does Christmas, too. By the time January 1st comes, I am worn. Out. It takes all my energy every year not to become a Bah, Humbug.
(I love the actual people in these families, which is what ends up saving me.)
Some years, if Damon and I don’t get to do holiday cards, we send out Chinese New Year cards instead. I always like to take this time to clear my “debts” (here redefined to include whatever things I still want to finish in the old year), clean my house (literally and figuratively), brainstorm resolutions, and go!
This year, I've decided housecleaning includes this blog. That is why, with the Year of the Rat only a couple days away, I'm going to blog about Christmas.
Christmas was actually not as long ago for me as it was for you. Damon's three families did the whole thing on time, but my family just did Christmas two weeks ago, with the meal and everyone and presents. For ritual, we just have four stockings—unmarked and unpersonalized—tacked over the fireplace very gingerly, in a way that won’t support any weight. Those stockings represent me, my brother, and our two spouses.
The stockings always look sad and empty, and two of them aren’t even “stockings”; they’re red-and-green velvet wine bags that my parents got at some holiday party. (The wine bags actually look nicer than the other two, “real” stockings we got for $1.99 apiece from a drugstore twenty years ago, so even though I make fun of them, I appreciate them, too.) These stockings excite little interest in my brother and me every year, which disappoints my mom—every year. She always has to urge us to go look, and when we do, invariably, there are red envelopes waiting inside, each containing 50 bucks—sometimes 60—in crisp 10- and 20-dollar bills.
“Ohhh!!!” my brother and I and our spouses always say, surprised all over again. “Thanks, Mom!”
“Don’t thank me!”
Thank you, Santa!!
This year, after so many years of her hinting, “Santa might have left your something. Don’t you want to
look?” we finally knew what to expect. The four of us gamely went over to the fireplace and did a whole round of, “Heyy! Here’s one for you! And here’s one for you!” handing out red envelopes, my mom beaming on.
Then, at the end of the night, we discovered that one of the envelopes was
short. (One of the stockings had
40 dollars, not
60.)
“MAMA CLAUS! MAMA CLAUS!” three of us sounded the alarm, my brother protesting and laughing the whole time (“It's not a big deal!”). My mother came running. I don’t think she liked the “Mama Claus” moniker much, but she liked our message even less. “One of the stockings is 20 dollars short!”
“What?! NO!!” She looked aghast, her eyes growing
huge. "I put it back!!"
“Busted! So busted!!" we howled. "Dipping into the Christmas stockings!” But my mother was adamant, taking the red envelope jointly in my brother’s hands. “Are you sure you looked? Look again!” Accusing my brother of total incompetence. And lo and behold . . .
“Oh! OH!” my brother cried out, whipping out a crisp twenty. “A-HAHHAHA! It was stuck in the lining!”
We were
dying. Why is my family always like this?
“Awwww,” my mom said, shamefaced. “Why’d you trick me to confess? I needed cash one day,” she confided, now triumphant. “But it didn't make sense. I took much more than twenty.”
A recent blog entry by my friend
Julie gave me food for thought on the cultural mishmosh of our lives. She mentioned, just in passing, that Santa Claus brings presents for her two (soon to be three!) kids. “Believing in the chubby bearded guy was Kevin's tradition growing up, not mine, but the kids hear about Santa from school, daycare, and pop culture, and I don't see any harm in it, so we're preserving the tradition as long as the kids keep believing,” she said.
That’s all she said, but it was the first time I’d ever considered the Santa dilemma from the us-as-
parents' point of view. Usually, I think of it from the kids’ perspective. (Santa still leaves
me presents, after all—at
three households these days, no less—and with very different cultural implications at each. The Santa that brings socks and underwear is different from the Santa that individually wraps little toys and chocolates, who is different from the Santa with the red envelopes.)
When I think about the Santa dilemma, I always think back to the raging debate I first heard in the halls outside my first grade classroom, back in the day. Some of my classmates argued—violently, ganging up with each other—that Santa wasn’t real; others still believed.
I don’t remember actively believing in Santa as a
small child, myself. I don't think I'd even considered the question up until that point. Presents from Santa appeared in my house, too, but without a lot of fanfare, and for some reason I'd never been that curious. So when I heard my classmates arguing—with all the scorn and hope that came on both sides—I felt neutral. Unsurprised. I hadn’t put that much thought into it, but the explanation (“my dad says it’s
all our parents!”) suddenly made sense.
I mean, I might have been a
little disappointed. Shocked, upset. It wasn’t like I was
looking to be randomly disillusioned that day. But no one was paying attention to my reaction at that moment, so I was able to take my struggling emotions home in peace. And let's be honest: My parents never tried
that hard to make it real. The “From Santa” tags were always written in
their handwriting—something I was quick to point out in subsequent years. (Occasionally, after that, however, random
unlabeled presents would
also appear under the tree with
out “From Santa” tags, which would “surprise” my parents. This became a new source of aggravation for me.)
The darnedest thing was that my parents never gave it up, either. Just look at the stocking story I just told: my mom balked at us calling her Mama Claus. Even now, when Santa’s not bringing us wrapped presents anymore, you’ll never get her to
say Santa’s not real.
(I'm
sure I could get any of Damon’s parents to say it, in spite of how elaborately they do it up.)
I went through a phase in 2nd grade—and off and on even through 4th grade—when I was hellbent on
proving Santa wasn’t real. I ransacked the house to find where extra presents or extra gift wrap might be hidden. I never found gifts, but I
did eventually find extra rolls of wrapping paper that matched Santa's—hidden high-up in a closet in the guest bedroom. My parents were completely bland about it, admitting nothing.
I remember the wild, irrational hope coming to me at times during that campaign—long
after the early years when I neither believed nor felt the issue was important. In that 2nd-through-4th-grade phase, it suddenly be
came important. I
needed to prove it. Suddenly, I was going to
make them say it.
But othertimes, because I couldn’t—and because they
wouldn't—I’d still think,
Could it be . . . ? And something
huge in me would grow, irrational.
If I had a kid today, would
I play Santa Claus? Would I—could I—dare to
not?I don’t know.
(Maybe my kids will have to be extra good, and I'll just hope irrationally along with them!)
I do have this philosophy that love—and magic—is created when two or more people play a game using the same special rules and definitions.
But that is a blog entry for another time.
love,
r
What do you guys think/ remember/ plan to do—about Santa Claus?
Hey, everyone,
So this is my second SCBWI Summer Conference-related post. I've been meaning to post this for a while.
Lisa Yee's Monday afternoon keynote: "Ethnic Diversity in Literature: Should Who You Are Determine What You Write?"
As usual, Lisa Yee kept her audience in stitches
I was especially looking forward to Lisa Yee's talk on this all weekend because, about a year ago, I had left a comment on
Lisa Yee's blog that touched on the fact her characters were Asian American. Then I'd freaked out an hour later and deleted it instantly. I was hoping this talk would enlighten me as to whether I could have left that comment up or not.
This is highly unorthodox, seeing as how Lisa Yee and I are LJ neighbors (as is Linda Sue Park from
my last post, for that matter), but I can tell you exactly what that comment said. I'm going to post it again now, in this blog.
Hi, Lisa Yee,
Last night I was reading Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time when my husband asked what the book was about. I said, "Oh! This is Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, by Lisa Yee! It's the sequel to Millicent Min, Girl Genius, which won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award at the SCBWI conference a couple years ago. It's a really interesting way to do a sequel, too, because it takes place during the same time as the first book but follows the point of view of one of the other main characters, so you can really see all the places where the stories connect."
My husband looked at me blankly.
So then I said, "It's about an Asian boy who's really good at basketball and gets the cute, white girl."
Suddenly he reached for the book. "Really??" he said.
You really know your audience. ;)
Thanks for this,
Rita
I wrote this comment, and it seemed pretty funny to me. Then I went into my kitchen and made tea. Suddenly I found myself racing back to my computer and deleting the comment posthaste. What was I doing?? What was I
thinking?? I didn't know where Lisa Yee stood when it came to Asian American identity! Who was I to be all,
wink, wink, nudge, nudge?? If there's one thing working on
Cooleyville had taught me, it's that no two Asian Americans are at the same place when it comes to what can be joked about and what can't. I didn't know if Lisa Yee shared any of the same cultural assumptions as me. I didn't know what cultural assumptions her readers were bringing to her blog.
Had I just revealed too much about
myself??Could I have left that comment up or not?
Well, now I've listened to Lisa Yee's talk, and in terms of the comment, I still don't know. I totally related to everything she said—delivered in her endlessly hilarious, truest-truth way—and most especially the way she introduced herself as having "only become Chinese recently."
Everyone cracked up over that—except, perhaps, me. I didn't laugh out loud, because in that moment I was struck by knowing ex
actly what that meant. At one point I'd definitely felt more Chinese in a hurry, and that's exactly how I'd expressed it, too.
Once upon a time a friend tried to relate to me on the level that we were both minorities, and I had to confess that growing up Asian American in Orange County meant I had never felt marginalized. Which is not to say I felt marginalized later; but after a certain life-changing summer program in Taiwan and all the new friends I'd made and the Chinese pop music and my sudden willingness to speak Chinese (which I can do, if you trick me), I grew a lot more aware of how I thought about The Issues. I remembered thinking at the time (and it was definitely funny to think this way) that I'd become a lot more Chinese than I'd been, say, six months earlier. And once the process began, it never stopped.
I love that.
I'm not going to say this is "just like" how Lisa Yee's awareness heightened during reaction to her first book. (She started out thinking she had written a mainstream book with
Millicent Min, and the reviewers seemed to agree, but her thinking was challenged when it was proposed they change the ethnicity of the character for a TV show.)
But.
Her talk got me flashing back all over the place, so that half of me was taking in everything she said, and half of me was remembering and thinking exactly how it must be.
Afterward, I still didn't know whether I should have posted the comment. Actually, now that I look at it, I'm sure I shouldn't have. There are too many ways it could have been misinterpreted. But I spent so much time thinking about it, I decided to go ahead and post the whole thing here.
For anyone interested, here is what I meant.
All the Asian American guys
I know are obsessed with basketball. They love to play, they love to watch, and, most especially, they love to
play. They play all the time, as much as they can, which is multiple times a week even now, when we're near our mid-thirties. They're very much like their junior high and high school selves that way. In fact, when we were out of college I used to make fun of my then-boyfriend (now-husband) and his friends for thinking it was okay to wear basketball shorts
all the time, even to the grocery store, which is not how I'd ever thought my "dream guy" would dress.
(They don't do this anymore, but they still deny there's anything wrong with it.)
So I didn't for one second question the truth of Lisa Yee's depiction of Stanford Wong
that way. I didn't even realize
how refreshing it was to see that in print until I'd made the comment aloud to Damon. Once I
had, however, I was like,
Huh! You
know...??
So the first misinterpretation I'd want to avoid would be if someone thought I'd meant making an Asian guy a jock was an "original," "creative" idea, i.e. going against type. No, that's not what I meant. The type is so natural to me—with basketball in particular—I didn't even realize it was missing from children's books until Lisa Yee wrote Stanford Wong.
claps hands "Of
course!"The second half was acknowledging that most Asian American guys I know have a common, grudging awareness that Asian males, in
media, are never depicted as getting the girl—most especially if the girl is a white, romantic lead. Asian males can be good or bad guys, usually cast in minor roles (if they can get those); and my friends are fairly divided over whether they like seeing themselves depicted as scientists or doctors. (Of course, you can think up isolated, sort-of exceptions to this "never" rule, which we can spend all day debating.)
In my comment, I wasn't saying Lisa Yee was acknowledging or bucking or doing anything deliberate regarding this issue. In the book, it's
not an issue. Stanford and Emily like each other. My comment was meant as gentle ribbing over how an Asian American guy might take an interest in knowing this "miraculous" event had been depicted in a
book. In a successful,
popular one!
But that's a lot to expect people to get from my comment. The worst interpretation would be if people thought I meant my husband had an undue interest in white women. Good grief.
I saw Lisa Yee at the conference, and we've met a few times, so I meant to ask her about this in person (after I heard her talk). But she was
so besieged with fans right up to the very end of the autograph party, I didn't have the heart to take up her time with such a long, potentially vague question.
I guess I wanted to know if she would have known what I meant—and whether she ever thinks of Stanford Wong as giving Asian American
male readers what they've been missing. I know she said she didn't become aware of herself as "an ethnic writer" until reception of her first book—and that she
had become aware by the time she wrote
Stanford Wong. That's when she brought out the theme of Stanford's resentment of Millicent for playing to smart Asian type, for example (which I greatly enjoyed). But these other points of Stanford's character—the basketball, the struggling in school, the getting the girl; and even the resentment of Millicent—were already set in place by the end of the first book. So does she think of these
other elements
that way now?
Or is that all so natural, she still doesn't?
I'm just curious.
(No, it doesn't actually matter.)
If
you had seen my comment on Lisa Yee's blog, and had not read any of what I just wrote, would
you have known what I meant?
Would you have made one of the misinterpretations I suggested above?
Love,
Rita
P.S.
I should probably mention—
When I say "Asian," in this post, I mean Asian American. I don't usually say the whole thing. In the context of
my life,
American's just implied.
I'm typing in the air conditioned comfort of an old, high-ceilinged, civil-war-style house in downtown Atlanta, GA -- have you ever seen Gone With the Wind? It's like that, only instead of Rhett Butler, it's just us inside. The house belongs to our friends Ayesha and Dave, but they're not here either--coincidentally, their already-planned vacation coincided with our visit (at least they told us it was coincidental…) so they're off in parts unknown. Still, they let us use their glorious pad in their absence. Thanks, guys!
Here’s a picture of us in Frisco, NC, before we left. Also, a picture with Leslie Ann Lanier of the wonderful bookstore Books To Be Red in Ocracoke, NC. A must-visit if you're a bibliophile on the Outer Banks. The 'Red' in the store's name comes from Ann's hair. Isn't that cool? :-)
Two days ago we left North Carolina's Outer Banks at 9:30 AM and drove all day, arriving here after midnight. Believe it or not, it wasn't too bad a trip. The kids were happily involved with the backseat DVD player (many thanks to my parents for providing that!), and Karen and I actually got a chance to talk. Weird, huh? We ended up stopping at South Of The Border (http://www.pedroland.com/), a Mecca for weary travelers of Interstate 95. There we had a fabulously fun 24-story elevator ride up into a giant Mexican sombrero. Que barbaro! :-)
I love Atlanta! Such nice people, such nice weather, good coffee--it's got it all. And Evan, Lucy, and Zoe are fascinated by the GIANT bugs we see everywhere here in the south. I need to take a photo. They really are somethin' to see!
Yesterday we were given the royal treatment by the Barnes and Noble in Alpharetta, GA. Before I spoke to readers, they had a 'dragon' -- a big ol' lizard -- as the opening act. I never opened up for a reptile before. :-) Here’s a picture with Cindy Rittenhouse, who runs the amazing children’s/young-adult section and Rachel, a high school junior and future star critic.
The Little Shop of Stories, a fantastic independent book store in Decatur, GA, did an absolutely amazing window display about our road trip. See the pictures below -- although they don't actually do justice to it. Still, can you believe this? In the last photo I’m also shown with store co-owner Dave Shallenberger, who did the artwork, and Terra McVoy, store manager. Thanks, guys!
Here are Elle Race and Regan Foster of Storyville, a lovely book shop for younger kids in Duluth, GA. They served lemonade for my visit--a very nice touch. They're a new bookstore in the northern suburbs of Atlanta -- Good luck to them! :-)
Some fun news: Check out the Publisher’s Weekly Web site – we’re the lead article! :-) Here’s the link:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6457079.html
A Note added by Karen: A highlight of our stay in Atlanta was that we met up with one of my best friends from high school, Karen Sytsma and her family! I haven't seen Karen in 20 years, and we hit it off as if we see each other everyday! Karen and her sons Josiah and Caleb followed us to all the bookstores, and we got a chance to visit her husband Mike at work! Josiah showed the kids a dragon lizard called Beowolf...a relative of the giant iguana we saw earlier. All these lizards in Atlanta, is it a requirement to have one? What a great visit!!
Tomorrow we’re off to Jackson, MS, via Birmingham, AL. :-)
Happy travels!
--Mark
www.markpeterhughes.com
