In a nutshell, the reading for my creative writing class nicked me across my heart. Specifically, my Vietnamese-American, first generation, recently-left-the-house heart. Although I read Gish Jen’s short story “Who’s Irish?” by mistake, one of the other readings, “Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter” by Divakaruni wouldn’t have let me avoid the scratch.
In both stories, a grandmother from China and India respectively each live with their families in America, and find it difficult to live in their new, Americanized setting. How their ways clash with the “American” ways of their children and grandchildren becomes the focal point of each story. And reading both made me hurt because it hits so fucking close to home, I can’t even laugh about it.
In Jen’s story, the granddaughter misbehaves and the grandmother wants to spank the child, while the parents consider spanking as causing confidence issues or some other bullcrap. Note that I say say bullcrap here; I was happy when the grandmother does decide to spank the girl, and it f*cking worked. The kid stopped taking off her clothes and throwing them around. The grandmother does things her way, always commenting about how no kid would ever act like that in China. This way is my way too. My parents hit me as a kid for punishment, and I learned not to fuck around with them. I love them, they love me, but I was a fucking nasty little kid, and I’m glad they got me to grow straight up.
But it’s not the way of the America portrayed in both stories. An America that is just as real as the rest of the stories. In Divakaruni’s story, the Indian grandmother flies out and lives with her son and daughter-in-law only after her husband dies, and I’ll be damned if that wasn’t the right thing to do. At one point, the daughter-in-law says that their neighborhood is not the kind for, and brace yourself now ‘cuz this is outragious, hanging out the laundry in the backyard. Yeah…
At the end of that story, the daughter confides to her husband (the grandmother’s son) in what ways she feels like the house is not her home. The differences in laundry, cooking, dealing with children, and etc are just too much for her. At the end of Jen’s story, the married couple decide that the grandmother cannot live with them anymore due to her “harsh” handlings of the child.
I feel bad for my parents. These stories hurt me because my parents are in the same damn environment that these grandmothers are in, the only thing that makes things better is that my (most of)siblings and I grew up while embracing most of my parent’s Vietnamese ways. But I am/was a pretty asshole of a son. It hurts to think that my parents had to deal with the same damn tribulations, that feeling of frustration and shame, and I contributed to it. Respect your parents, do what they ask, and let them have their way. It’s simple yet not.
Two siblings still live with my parents, one brother and one sister. They do not respect my parents. My parents ask them to take out the garbage or recycling, they say, “I will” and then hours will pass before they unpeel their eyes from the TV/computer. If my parents get fed up, do it themselves, then remark about it, the siblings lash out , “I said I was going to do it!” Yes, you read that right. They will get angry at their own parents because they didn’t do what they were told to. They’re both lazy, stupid, and have this strange sense of entitlement despite the fact that they live and eat by the graces of their mom and dad. “I paid for the computer” which Mom and Dad pay the electricty and Internet bills for. “I set the table last time,” the food which is cooked by Dad everyday, with care in mind to include a dish that my ignorantly picky sister can eat.
I was going to continue ranting about those siblings, but this is about my parents. I’m happy that I’ve learned what they had to teach. Well, most of it anyways, but still, I can’t help but feel bad for those Grandmother’s and my own parents who dealt with these troubles
Timestamp – 2:49 AM
