Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of) (21 page)

By the time I graduated high school and left for college, Georgia and I were starting to drift apart. On the surface we tried to pretend like we’d be friends forever, but on top of all the problems between us that we were ignoring, I was also heading off to new experiences in a different city while she was staying back in Toronto. At first we talked every day; she even came to campus to visit one weekend. But then she told my boyfriend in Toronto that I was flirting with other guys at school—totally true. But still. That’s a total girl-code violation. More importantly, though, the Squawking Chicken had called it. Georgia betrayed me. It was over.

Ma considers what happened with Georgia an outright victory, confirmation once again that she is all-knowing and all-seeing. I look back at the situation, however, and wonder what would have happened if Ma had encouraged me to better communicate my feelings to Georgia and talk out our differences instead of letting my resentments and assumptions about her—planted there by Ma in the first place—dictate my approach to our friendship until it became unsalvageable. Ma would say it wasn’t worth saving anyway so why waste your time? Sure. But that only holds up if I could honestly admit that I had no accountability for why Georgia and I fell apart. Of course as my mother, Ma was taking my side. But it’s not like Ma had any illusions about my lack of perfection in other areas. She was fully capable of
pointing out that I wasn’t pretty enough to be a beauty queen and she quite happily shamed me when I misbehaved, always in service of teaching a life lesson. And they have almost always been lessons that have served me well over time.

Ma’s life lesson about friendship though—“You only need one true friend”—is the only one that I have doubted. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more and more resistant to Ma’s attempts at sabotaging my friendships. Using Low Classy against a friend, like she did with Winnie, doesn’t work on me anymore. Using Feng Shui Blackmail to distance me from a friend doesn’t work either.

I have a very good friend named Margot. She was born in the year of the Goat. I was born in the year of the Ox. The Goat is the opposing sign of the Ox. In other words, Goats and Oxen are supposed to be incompatible. Margot and I are indeed very different. She is a contrarian. She will take the other side, just because. She will challenge at every turn. But because of this she makes me better. The Squawking Chicken likes Margot. She doesn’t hate Margot like she hated Georgia. She appreciates that Margot has been generous and kind. Margot visited Ma in the hospital and brought her food. There is nothing about Margot’s character that Ma can criticize.

Except she’s a Goat.

Ma had no issues with my friendship with Margot the
Goat until we started developing a business project together. It was one thing to hang out but it was entirely another to take that to a professional level because, of course, business means money. And the Squawking Chicken is consumed by worrying about money. She’s obsessed with her own money and she’s equally obsessed about my money. She regularly demands that I tell her how much I have in my savings account. Everything about my career relates back to money. Because Ma is now at an age when money is only spent and not earned, her attitude about money is precious and paranoid. She is terrified about my not having any by the time I retire. And she is anxious about anything or anyone who would take it away. Like a Goat called Margot. Not that she believed Margot had any nefarious intentions, but she worried that Margot’s Goat-ness would clash with my Ox-ness; she thought that Margot’s longer, sharper goat horns would dominate my shorter, blunter ox horns and that somehow that would result in me going bankrupt.

What Ma didn’t understand was that financial gain wasn’t the reason Margot and I wanted to collaborate. In fact, it wasn’t even a consideration. For us, it was about creativity and fun. What could be more inspiring than imagining a new world with one of your best friends? These are the dreams that begin at sleepovers in grade school, whispered under the covers with the lights turned out, giggling until a
parent comes in to tell you to be quiet. These are the experiences the Squawking Chicken never had—both because she’s an immigrant and also because she was deprived of that kind of childhood.

It’s a common joke I share with all my friends from immigrant families—our parents just didn’t get it. Sleep
over
? Sleep away from home? Why would you want to sleep away from home? Some immigrant parents related it to safety: Who are these people? What if they don’t give you back? Others related it to diet: What will you eat there? What kind of food do those people serve? The Squawking Chicken, naturally, related it to money: I bought you a bed, such a nice bed. You don’t want to sleep in your own bed, you’d rather share a bed with a stranger when there’s one you can have to yourself in your own house?

Needless to say, sleepovers weren’t happening in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, when Ma was growing up. And even if they were, during the years when she would have had sleepovers, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity, having quit school early to care for her siblings and work off her parents’ gambling debts. So it’s not just that the Squawking Chicken can’t appreciate the bonding that can result from a sleepover, she actually missed out on enjoying the small moments that form the building blocks of friendship during those awkward, angsty adolescent years. Through the joys
and the mistakes of those moments, we learn how to listen, what happens when we don’t listen, how to share, when to hold back, how to comfort, how to hurt—how to Be a Friend.

My ma, the Squawking Chicken, for all her wisdom, doesn’t know how to be a friend. I only fully realized this after she was hospitalized for POEMS. One of the women she had met at her Chinese opera lessons, Kimberly, was the opera master’s wife. She’s very kind, very sweet, so sweet she doesn’t even like to gossip, unlike so many of the other ladies who are part of the Chinese opera circle. It’s the Chinese version of
The
Real Housewives
, except that instead of gossiping while tanning, working out and shopping, they gossip while singing Chinese opera, playing mah-jong and shopping. Kimberly, however, mostly stayed out of the drama. She and Ma quickly became close. Kimberly was one of the few people outside family who came to visit Ma in the hospital when she was at her worst. She went out of her way to help, bringing fresh noodles for Ma on her lunch hour from work because she knew that Ma was having a hard time with the hospital food. She’d skip her own meal just to rush over because she wanted the broth to still be hot by the time she arrived. She never expected anything in return. Ma kept saying how wonderful Kimberly was. She made me promise to take Kimberly and her family out for dinner to thank her
for her generosity. I did. But when it was Ma’s turn to come through in Kimberly’s time of need, she couldn’t deliver.

There was a tragedy in Kimberly’s family. She lost someone very close to her while she was on a trip back to Hong Kong. Ma had asked Kimberly before she left, well before the sad news, to bring back some Chinese herbs. Kimberly was understandably despondent when she came back to Canada. She stayed in her bedroom while the Chinese opera lessons were happening in the basement. She refused to see anyone, she refused to go out, she was too depressed to socialize. Ma missed Kimberly and wanted to talk to her. So she picked up the phone and called. Kimberly’s son, Sean, answered and said that she wasn’t feeling up to it. Ever sensitive, the Squawking Chicken told Sean to pass on to his mother that she was phoning about her Chinese herbs.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I asked Ma about Kimberly a few days after that conversation. She told me what had happened, which is when I explained to her that that was really rude and that if she really wanted to let Kimberly know that she cared, she needed to call back and, this time, not inquire about her fucking herbs and that even if Sean picked up, she should tell him to pass on the message to Kimberly that she was thinking of her and was concerned about her and to call her if she wanted to
talk. I also advised her to call every few days, not just once, and keep passing on that message.

It was like I was teaching her how to walk. She had no idea. All her “friend” feelings were there, but she didn’t know how to show them, and even when I coached her through the process, she felt uncomfortable expressing them. Ma was sympathetic. But she didn’t know how to offer sympathy. She didn’t understand that sympathy looks different depending on who it’s intended for. She wasn’t capable of tailoring her sympathy to the person who’s receiving it. She thought it was enough that she was sympathetic in the first place, that her initial phone call would have been enough for Kimberly to make the connection that she was on her mind.

The Squawking Chicken is great in a crisis. She’ll come through when the triads are threatening you for money. She’ll speak up for you if you need protecting. She’ll defend your honor when your husband is cheating on you. She’ll have your back when you’re being swindled. She is there for the urgent and extraordinary. But she totally sucks for everything in between—those moments between crises that hold friendship together, the moments that make memories.

Memories like working with one of your closest friends on a project. Which is why she couldn’t accept that Margot and I wanted to work together. Margot and I were
essentially trying to create an adult sleepover. The motivation wasn’t money. Being together was the only motivation we needed. Doing it together was what was most exciting. Since Ma has never lived through the thrill of sharing something like that with a friend, she couldn’t comprehend why that would be the end goal. In the absence of that understanding, rather than the wonderful personal fulfillment that occurs when two friends find their connection, all she could see was financial risk. This is why the Squawking Chicken fails at friendship. Because her approach to friendship is fundamentally flawed: it’s self-preservation at the expense of trust. The Squawking Chicken does not trust. And friendships can’t last if there’s a constant expectation of betrayal from one side. So Ma has convinced herself that you only need “one true friend.”

Ma only keeps in touch with one friend from her childhood. It’s my godmother, Auntie Lai, who lives in Hong Kong. They’ve known each other for over forty years. They used to see each other once every other year, but Ma can’t travel long distance anymore due to illness. They speak on the phone every few weeks. Auntie Lai looks after Ma’s accounts in Hong Kong. Ma trusts her with her money because Auntie Lai has seen the Squawking Chicken through it all—she knows about her family’s disappointments, she watched Ma reclaim her life and pride in young adulthood,
she knows why Ma left Dad, she accepted Ma’s relationship with Uncle—and she has (ahem) never judged. Auntie Lai didn’t judge Ma because she was there when it all happened, their history was shared, she knew the rationale behind Ma’s decisions, she knew the heartbreak behind Ma’s choices. And yet, even having been on the receiving end of beautiful acceptance and understanding, experiencing the wonderful gift from that “one true friend,” Ma is incapable of extending to anyone else the same acceptance and understanding Auntie Lai gave her. Because in her mind, Auntie Lai is the exception, a rare anomaly that only proves her point that you only need one true friend. Like a scientist who refuses any alternative interpretation of data but for the hypothesis she desperately wants to put forward, Ma has willfully chosen to believe that Auntie Lai’s version of friendship is not the universal definition of it but a unique and singular representation, a comet never to return again, a once-in-a-lifetime event that cannot be replicated. Any potential new friend then comes in at a disadvantage. They are expected to be a letdown. And they often are, both because no one is infallible but also because Ma goes looking for their flaws. The result, I’ve noticed, is a maximum friendship life span of eighteen months to two years. At the end of that time, always a breakup.

There was Mrs. Pong in 1999. Ma and Mrs. Pong were
introduced at mah-jong. They clicked quickly and soon it was Mrs. Pong this, Mrs. Pong that. Ma was over at Mrs. Pong’s at least three times a week. Ma had me research where Mrs. Pong’s kids could go for English language improvement classes because they were new to Canada. Mrs. Pong hooked Ma up when she wanted to buy fake Louis Vuitton handbags. Then Mrs. Pong claimed she found a great abalone supplier and sent over a few pounds for Ma to try. Abalone is a big-ass deal in Chinese homes for its perceived healing properties and because of its cost. Ma is always saying that abalone will boost energy and stimulate the mind. So abalone becomes a double-brag for anyone who has access to it—because they can afford it and also in being able to afford it, they might be smarter than everyone else.

Ma tried Mrs. Pong’s abalone and it was terrible. She said the meat was too chewy and that it tasted fake. Since it was such a hot menu item, there was apparently a lot of counterfeit abalone floating around. Rather than giving Mrs. Pong the benefit of the doubt—perhaps she’d been duped by her abalone dealer?—Ma automatically assumed that Mrs. Pong was in on the abalone fraud and using her as an unwitting publicist for her imitation abalone. So she cut her off with no explanation. Mrs. Pong was confused about why she was suddenly shut out of the Squawking Chicken’s life. Ma would screen her calls and when other members of their mah-jong
circle called to invite her to play at Mrs. Pong’s place, she made a big production of telling the caller that she didn’t want to say why she couldn’t go to Mrs. Pong’s because that would be gossipy . . . which, as you can imagine, only made the gossip even worse. When it got back to Mrs. Pong, she went on the offensive, talking shit about Ma to protect herself, and that only confirmed to Ma that she was right all along—Mrs. Pong wasn’t a friend worth keeping.

Mrs. Pong was followed by Mrs. Kam in 2003. Mrs. Kam and Ma were friends from their Chinese opera singing club. (Chinese people who emigrate are constantly looking for “activities.” These range from salsa dancing to calligraphy to winemaking. Ma came home after one of those winemaking classes with two cases of ice wine that she’s still giving away. Every time she sees my friends she comes with her goddamn ice wine that tastes like shit.) Mrs. Kam and the Squawking Chicken were the unofficial social activities coordinators of the group. They organized all kinds of excursions for the other Chinese ladies who were new to the community. They planned a big Chinese New Year feast to raise money for charity. Like she was at the beginning with Mrs. Pong before her, Ma was tight with Mrs. Kam. They had dim sum several times a week. They went to every new Chinese restaurant opening to get the jump on the best place to eat. There was a lot going on with Mrs. Kam all the time. Until Ma started
noticing that when Mrs. Kam wasn’t with her, she was spending a lot of time with the married calligraphy teacher.