Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of) (19 page)

Ma irons everything, even towels. She puts a lot of effort into her attire, even if she’s just going out for groceries. Her clothes are always pressed, always clean, never even a piece of lint. For the Squawking Chicken, it’s all about presentation.

“People will judge you on your first appearance,” she used to say to me before job interviews. She always judges on first appearances. Wrinkles are a disgrace. Wrinkles are Low Classy. The person who voluntarily walks around with wrinkles is the person who doesn’t care about himself and as such can’t be trusted. When Jacek met my parents for the first time, I was on his ass nonstop about wrinkles. If he showed up in wrinkles, I knew she’d hate him on sight. He ended up ironing his jeans and even his sweater.

I have since learned that different cultures have different comportment standards for Low Classy. Jacek’s Polish father thinks it’s Low Classy when a man stands around with his hands in his pockets. I don’t necessarily agree, but I can see why it would offend old-school thinkers. Keeping your hands in your pockets isn’t open or polite. It’s like you’re hiding something, not transparent. In other words, Low Classy.

Then again, you don’t want to show too much. For the Squawking Chicken, too much is cleavage. Chinese women are pretty conservative in personal style compared to Westerners. Westerners are a lot more comfortable showing more skin. Ma believes that the way a woman dresses can indicate how loose, or not loose, she is. A woman in wrinkled clothing, obviously, spends too much time on her back to care about looking presentable. A woman who’s presenting her breasts first obviously only cares about being on her back.

PDA ranks high on the Squawking Chicken’s list of Low Classy offenses. Kissing, hugging and even hand-holding should not be on display. Those who present their physical love to the world must have been bred in brothels. It is
undignified. If that’s what they’re doing in public, imagine the crazy shit they must be doing in private.

Ma started hammering this into me early. A man would put his arm around his girlfriend in a movie theater and she’d spend the whole movie making snide comments about how disgusting it was that they were practically fucking in their seats. A woman would spoon a mouthful of rice into her husband’s mouth at a restaurant and Ma would glare at them through the entire meal, accusing the lady of being easy, concluding that that was the only reason the guy was with her. We’d be waiting for the train on the platform and a young couple holding hands would kiss, lightly, not even making out, and she’d walk by them, muttering loud enough for them to hear her calling them tramps.

And it’s not limited to the romantic either. As I mentioned earlier, she’s not warm, the Squawking Chicken. She doesn’t receive hugs well. This has made for some hilarious moments in North America, a rather huggy culture. When my friends came over and tried to hug her, she looked like they were handing her a used diaper. The first time my husband, Jacek, moved to hug her she looked like she wanted to slap him. Even when I hug her, and I have done so more and more as she’s been in the hospital so much, she shrinks away, like I’m about to infect her with something, usually dog hair, which is what she almost always says as soon as I touch her.
“Don’t get your dogs’ hair all over me. It’s so gross, all that dog hair you have all over yourself. That’s so Low Classy.” She means the hair
and
the hugging.

Indeed, the more tactile the person, the Low Classier she or he is. Combine that with verbal affection and you may as well be dead to her. As previously mentioned, the Squawking Chicken isn’t great with corny talk. If we’re watching a soap opera and two lovers are sharing their feelings, she’ll start hollering to turn the channel or she’ll get up in a huff and ruin the moment for those who are enjoying it. The verbal sweetness is sickening to her. Partly it’s because she doesn’t think words can ever properly capture sentiment. It just ends up feeling insincere, no matter how sincere the expression was intended to be. And also it’s the way it sounds. Because our voices change when we’re conveying emotion. You don’t tell someone you care for them in the same way you order a coffee. You adjust the delivery, you soften the tone. Like . . . baby talk. The tone of love is baby talk. And it’s the tone of love that Ma finds so repulsive, especially coming from a female. To her, it’s simpering. Fake. Dishonest then. And therefore manipulative, the kind of womanly wile she considers the defining mark of a cheap Low Classy woman. A woman like Jane.

Jane was Ma’s roommate at the hospital where she
received her radiation treatments after her POEMS diagnosis. Jane arrived a few weeks after Ma had settled in. Jane was also Chinese, replacing Constance, an elderly white woman Ma greatly admired. Constance was tidy and kept to herself. She read a lot of books and had good posture. Constance occupied the bed by the window and when she was discharged, Ma took over that spot and waited to see who would be next. At first, she was happy about Jane’s arrival because they spoke the same language. Jane said she was a retired schoolteacher, which impressed Ma, and they made plans to go for dim sum when they were both let out of the hospital. Ma liked Jane so much at the beginning she even asked her personal caregiver, Gloria, to help her get around. Every time I called her, she went on about Jane this and Jane that. She was all over Jane, in a good way. So when I came to visit, I began to make conversation with Ma’s new friend, grateful to the person who was making her recovery more bearable. Until the Squawking Chicken abruptly barked at me to come over to her side, awkwardly ending the conversation. She was foul for a while after that. Finally, when Jane left the room, I asked her why she was in such a bad mood.

“I don’t want you to have any more contact with that woman. She’s Low Classy.”

I looked over at Gloria, who just shrugged and walked
away. It was because Jane had visitors—three different men who came on different days. And when they’d come to see her, Jane would put on the baby talk. She had nicknames for each of them. Egg Tart was the dude who came on Mondays and Wednesdays. Piggy was the one who came on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Chief visited on weekends. But she’d speak to all of them in the same way. Jane’s love voice drifted over to Ma’s side of the room like a diseased cloud.
Oh Eggy! Why
are you so late today? Don’t you know I’ve been waiting for you?

Worse still was the fact that Jane would be fine before their arrival and then act like she’d been suffering as soon as they got there.
Thank God you’re here, Piggy. I’ve had such a rough time lately. It’s been so terrible. You must help me feel better.

Ma made it sound like Jane was ripping off her clothes every time Egg Tart, Piggy or the Chief came around. She made a face like something was rotting, like Jane’s baby talk was accompanied by a foul stench that hovered over their beds.

Ma was stuck. She was handicapped and she was being forced to listen to a woman moan and mewl, as she put it, in a man’s face four days a week.

That’s so Low Classy.

It was everything Ma hated in a woman: weak, phony and wanton.

And so the Squawking Chicken let it be known that she was offended. Whenever Egg Tart or Piggy came around, she’d have Gloria draw the privacy curtain right away, and with force, clearly dividing the room between the Low Classy side and the High Classy side. I showed up one day when Piggy was there and the curtain was drawn. Not knowing the symbolism behind the curtain, I tried to push it back because it made Ma’s section feel cramped and dark. She stopped me right away. There was a gleam in her eye when I asked her why. I had played right into her plan. “I can no longer watch what’s happening over there. In broad daylight! A woman with no shame bringing shame on me by association! Low Classy! Low Classy!”

She made it sound like it was porn. Like Jane and Piggy were triple X-ing each other by whispering sweet nothings. Later on, as I wheeled her down to the cafeteria, I suggested that maybe Jane was lonely, and if having three companions come visit her on the regular, sharing harmless words of affection, was helping her convalesce, maybe Ma could ease up on being such a bitch.

“I’d rather be lonely than Low Classy.” And then: “Only home wreckers act like that, not caring who sees, who hears.”

The home wrecker is the embodiment of all that is Low Classy.

I went on my first Home Wrecker Hunt when I was eleven years old. As usual, we were at Grandmother’s mah-jong den, always where the action went down. Ma’s table was waiting on the final player—Ah Jun (whose husband, by the way, was a leg jiggler). Ma thought he was shit because he treated Ah Jun like shit, even though she doted on him, scrambling off in the middle of a game whenever he called for his dinner, crying on her way back whenever he bailed, which was often, because he had a mistress.

Ah Jun was a mess when she showed up that afternoon. Her face was red, her hair was unwashed, but she refused to explain why when she sat down at the table. Everyone tried to ignore her at first. Even Ma was remarkably restrained. She would have continued to overlook her disheveled state but Ah Jun kept fucking up the cards. She’d be overdrawn on her deck and have to forfeit. Or she’d call the two of circles as her winning tile when she was actually waiting on the three of circles. In mah-jong, when you call a win for the wrong tile, you end up having to pay the other players a maximum hand amount as a penalty. Ma wasn’t having any fun. That was the problem. Ah Jun was normally a decent
competitor. This was a waste of Ma’s time. Finally, Ma had had enough. She stopped the game and made Ah Jun tell her what was up.

Ah Jun’s husband had spent the night over at his mistress’s. That morning, after he left to go to work, the mistress called Ah Jun to lord it over her. “He’s sleeping here now. He likes it better here, better than at home with you. Pretty soon, you’ll never see him.” The mistress was evidently rather descriptive, boasting about the carnal benefits of her place over Ah Jun’s.

That’s so Low Classy.

Ma was furious. Nothing was Low Classier than a flagrant home wrecker. A proper home wrecker knew her place and hid her face, shamed by her home wrecking. A home wrecker had no business making contact with the wife, who was official, who had social standing, who lived in the light.

This Low Classy home wrecker had to be told.

Ma threw down her chips. She ordered the mah-jong stopped at all the other tables as well. Then, the Squawking Chicken, in her signature screech, rallied her troops. She was a general leading her forces into battle. She was fighting the Low Classy. “Ah Jun has been disrespected by a loose-legged whore! Our friend, Ah Jun, is the wife! Who is this bitch come with her smelly cunt to dishonor our friend! Our
friend is gentle and sweet and doesn’t deserve this. We must defend her! If you are her friend, you will follow me!”

All the mah-jong aunties threw down their chips too. Ma had stirred them up into a bunch of hungry hens out for blood. She stirred me up too. I was ready. I had no real attachment to Ah Jun but Ma made me want to go out and lay down my life for her anyway.

Ah Jun, at this point, was weeping even harder. She kept trying to grab Ma’s hand and hold her back. She kept worrying that her husband would be angry with her. She kept pleading with Ma to step off. Ma wasn’t hearing it. Ma was on a crusade against Low Classy. Nothing would stop her. And I did not want to miss it.

I snuck into the pack, hoping to tag along, but Grandmother noticed and told me not to go.
Stupid Grandmother!
I thought.
If I can’t go to this party, it’ll be all her fault.
Grandmother urged Ma not to take me with her and to have me stay with her and Ah Jun instead. But I didn’t want to be around Ah Jun and her wailing anymore. I looked at Ma beseechingly, desperately willing her to take me.
Please.

I should not have doubted. The Squawking Chicken wanted me to see what Low Classy looked like. She wanted me to see what happens to the Low Classy when it’s confronted by the righteous. Ma took my hand and stormed out
of the flat, the head of a herd of home wrecker hunters following behind.

We didn’t have to go far. Yuen Long wasn’t very big back then and everyone knew everyone else’s business, including where they lived. Pretty soon we’d arrived at Home Wrecker’s building. I tried to imagine what she would look like as we climbed the stairs. I pictured her with big hair and red lips. She’d be wearing a nightgown under a silk robe, one side falling off her shoulder. I wondered if we would catch her doing the sex, whatever that looked like, and I was at once afraid of seeing it and really excited about seeing it.

Ma rang the bell. An eye appeared at the peephole and went away. Ma rang the bell again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Still the Home Wrecker wouldn’t answer. So the Squawking Chicken started squawking: “I know you’re in there. And now I’m telling all your neighbors what you’ve done. You want to get in bed with a married man? You want to call his wife and brag about your slutty ways? Fine! Then everyone will know what you are—a cheap, dirty home wrecker!”

Some of the other residents on that floor started opening their doors to see what was going on. All the other aunties filled them in on what Home Wrecker had been doing. It was crazy and amazing and terrifying, I was so
overstimulated, I started to cry. Which is when Home Wrecker finally opened the door. There was silence.

Home Wrecker wasn’t at all what I expected. Home Wrecker looked exactly like the rabid mah-jong aunties standing behind the Squawking Chicken in front of the Home Wrecker’s steel gate. She even looked a little like Ah Jun—she was totally unremarkable. And she seemed really sad. In a small, wavering voice, she implored, “Please leave. Please don’t do this here.”

The Squawking Chicken had won already. “Do you know me?” Ma asked. Home Wrecker did, but Ma identified herself anyway. “I am Tsiahng Gai [the Squawking Chicken]. Do you know me?”

Again, Home Wrecker nodded.

“I am Ah Jun’s friend. You upset my friend, you upset me. You keep your dirty business to yourself, in a hole somewhere, I don’t care. But you bring down Ah Jun again and I won’t be so kind next time.”

And then we left. We headed back down the stairs. When we got to the lobby, Ma turned around and shouted out, “Snacks on me!” When we returned to Grandmother’s, she ordered frog congee and fried breadsticks for the whole group. The aunties gave Ah Jun and Grandmother a play-by-play of what went down at Home Wrecker’s. When Ah Jun
heard that Home Wrecker was intimidated by the Squawking Chicken, she seemed to calm down. Later on, her husband came to pick her up. When he walked in the door, Ma kept playing like he wasn’t there, even though he greeted her by name. I remember thinking that Ah Jun’s husband was really nice to Ah Jun and how it didn’t seem possible that he would ever be mean to her. After they left, Grandmother mentioned that it was nice to see Ah Jun so happy. Ma made a sound with her teeth and said that it would never last with a man like that.

In the taxi on the way home, I asked Ma why she went to all that trouble if she didn’t think Ah Jun would be happy in the long run. Ma said that she never wanted me to forget what happens to Low Classy people. She wanted me to see that Low Classy people not only embarrass themselves, they embarrass everyone around them. Ma explained that no matter how well educated I was and how much money I made, if I was Low Classy, no one would ever respect me. She also warned that being Low Classy follows you around for life. Later on that summer, I overheard Ma talking about Home Wrecker during a game at Grandmother’s. Home Wrecker ended up moving one town over, to Tuen Mun. Ma’s sister lived in Tuen Mun. She couldn’t get rid of her home-wrecker reputation there either.

“Daughter, don’t ever be Low Classy. You’ll never be respected.”

Given the Squawking Chicken’s lifelong war against the Low Classy, you’d think that she’d be all class, all the time. The fact of the matter is she is a hypocrite. After all, here is a woman who mobilized a battalion against a Low Classy home wrecker from the base camp of a mah-jong den. She wasn’t raised in Buckingham Palace. And she doesn’t pretend that she was raised there either. Ma has never misrepresented where she grew up. She has never lied about growing up poor, never lied about the fact that she’s not educated, never turned her back on her roots. Ma doesn’t judge from the top of the mountain. Ma judges from the ground level, which is how she justifies her own behaviors that might be considered Low Classy to others.

Like how she bargains for no tax wherever she is. I’ve seen her bargain for no tax in a department store, at Chanel and at Costco. It’s flea-market rules no matter what. When I call her on this, when I tell her that there’s no way they’re going to cut her the tax if she pays cash at Pottery Barn, for Christ’s sake, her answer is always the same: “It doesn’t hurt to ask. That’s how you get ahead in life. If you want to be the
chump who overspends, go ahead. But I’m not a billionaire leaving you an inheritance. You should learn how to save where you can.”

For all her hissing at those who are free with their bodies, her peculiar—and arguably Low Classy—body freedoms are displayed without apology. The Squawking Chicken eats with her mouth open. Like everything else she does, it’s loud. She chews by smacking her mouth, gnashing the food against her teeth like there’s constantly peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth, even if it’s just rice. I have been pointing this out to her my whole life. And my whole life, her response has been that that’s how they eat where she comes from and why am I being so pretentious?

Beyond the eating, there’s also the burping and the farting. The Squawking Chicken will burp, straight up, at the table, at home and when we’re out, and carry on like nothing happened. It’s the same with the flatulence. Jacek is now intimately familiar with Ma passing gas in his company. We’ll be at my parents’ place and she’ll walk by him on the way to the kitchen and let one go. The first time it happened, he thought he was being framed. Was he supposed to admit to something he didn’t do? Was he being set up to fail
because they didn’t want us to be together? Ma noticed that Jacek seemed uncomfortable so she decided to put him at ease: “Sorry,” she said. “I am a lot of gas.” These are exact words. And it was the last time she apologized for it.

How is farting freely in the presence of others any less Low Classy than pouting? For the Squawking Chicken it comes down to need and intent. Farting, after all, is a natural biological function. Pouting is a contrived motion of the mouth designed to lure and tempt. Pouting portends an ulterior motive. There is nothing concealed about a fart. When you have to go, you have to go. Anywhere. Even in an alley when there’s a perfectly serviceable toilet just steps away.

I was visiting Toronto for work and staying over at my friend Gabrielle’s instead of staying with my parents. They had sold their large home in Toronto and had moved to an apartment outside the city. Since I work downtown, it was closer for me to stay with Gab instead of commuting an hour from their condo where I don’t have a bedroom. They were coming to pick me up from Gab’s for dinner. I was watching from the window when they pulled up outside the house. By the time Gab and I made it out the door, Ma was out of the car and Dad was missing.

“Um, where’s Dad?” I asked.

“He had to pee.”

My father was two doors down, urinating in a lane
between houses. It was five o’clock. It was daytime. And my father was pissing on Gab’s neighbors’ property. When he could have easily just come into Gab’s and used her (private, functioning) bathroom.

What’s even crazier is that Ma said it like it was totally normal. Like it was completely logical for my dad, who’d just pulled up in a gold Mercedes, by the way, to be taking a leak on a lovely residential street even though he was parked in the driveway of my friend who could have offered him more appropriate facilities.

As you can imagine, I was mortified. Gab was standing next to me having just been told that my father was, at that moment, baptizing an alley a few feet away while my ma just stood there, smiling, as if we’d just had a perfectly ordinary interaction. I tried to change the subject. Ma had just had surgery on her arm to close up the fistula that she’d used when she required regular dialysis. It was a fresh scar running from her elbow to her wrist about an inch wide, red and swollen, hideous. Somehow I thought I could help Gab forget the fact that my father was eliminating in her community—by grabbing my mother’s arm and showing her a gaping wound. By this point, Gab was reeling from the Low Classiness of the Luis. Dad chose that moment to reappear.