The Angry Typist

In every culture, certain knowledge is passed down from one generation to another, strictly through the spoken word. The stories are never recorded on any paper or in any books with the facts optional and may change ever so slightly with every telling. Whether these stories are ways to connect one generation with another or simply sharing the burdens of unimaginable atrocities, mouth stories are a window to the past of others.

I am choosing to share this mouth story as it is one Māmā’s (媽媽) has told most frequently.

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“We lived in a large brick home with many floors,” Māmā would always start. “Your Gòng gong (公公 Māmā’s father) was not home very much, he traveled a lot for business.”

“Your Pópo (婆婆 Māmā’s mother) was very easily fooled,” Māmā explained with a hint of disdain. Māmā was the second daughter out of a total of 7 children, five daughters, two sons. “All of us were raised by our own personal nanny, only your Dà JiùJiù (大舅舅 big brother) and Xiǎo JiùJiù (小舅舅 little brother) were personally looked after by Pópo” she said.

I cannot recall when I became aware that a son was prized over a daughter as they alone carry on the family name. It is almost as if I was born to know this fact. Every Chinese daughter understands this silent code and accepts being invisible.           

“It was an extremely hot summer and I had wrote a story for a school assignment. By this time, we were very poor. The Communists government had taken everything. We had no chauffeur, no cook, a few of the nannies stayed on but Pópo could not pay them. Food was scarce, sometimes all the girls went hungry and watched the two boys eat” Māmā said flatly. “I was very excited that I got an A on my story. I wrote about how lovely it was to eat an ice-cold melon and how it was so juicy and delicious.  I wanted to show your Pópo but your Dà yí (大姨 eldest sister) – always the troublemaker, snatched my paper out of my hand then told Pópo that I ate a melon all by myself. Your Pópo believed her and chased me up the stairs to whip me with the duster.” Māmā finished.

Unlike the plastic synthetic Switfer duster of today, a Chinese duster was made of chicken feathers fastened to a ½” thick wooden stick, which many Chinese children had endured its lashes against bare skin, often leaving welts. The Chinese answer to the Southerner’s switch but multifunctional.

“I was an excellent student, always got A’s,” Māmā said proudly. “I never had trouble in school but your Pópo never cared about that. It was always what the girls can do for the two sons.” she said bitterly.

Māmā is a difficult woman and yet full of kindness and relentless loyalty to ‘family’ even to her own detriment. Her acts of kindness stems from her entrenched need to be praised and when she doesn’t get what she deemed she had earned, she grew increasingly bitter. We all grew up with some disappointment from childhood and my philosophy is that at some point as an adult, we need to just let it go to move forward but Māmā could not. She often seeks to fulfill that childhood need from me and I’d flatly refuse to entertain her. It is one of the sources of our strained relationship. Pópo’s failing as her mother should not fall on me to rectify.