Tiger Babies Strike Back (9 page)

I felt like a Chinese fighting fish in a small, confined fishbowl. Additionally, when I spotted other Chinese American women on campus, I imagined that we gazed at one another from inside our individual fishbowls, the view distorted by the imaginary glass and water. As we looked at one another without talking, maybe we alternately saw each other and ourselves smaller or bigger than we really were.

In retrospect, my childhood and teen years hadn't much prepared me for female friendships. As my Chinese and American sides were in constant struggle for dominance or equality, my personality had never developed in such a way that I could attain any level of social popularity. All my time was spent in pursuit of straight As or at Chinese school where I felt like an outsider. In the meantime, I hadn't ever learned how to “be myself,” let alone how to be a good friend.

I think it's easier for Chinese parents to push for the tangible results of top grades rather than to encourage their children to pursue close relationships. It may not be until much later that social awkwardness rears its pimply head. And by then, the subtle hierarchy and clues to the kingdom might simply further elude a nearsighted brainiac. For me, competition for grades trumped fun and friendship, and that pattern began early. I felt close to neither Chinese nor non-Asians, with only my A pluses and test scores to offer cold comfort.

No wonder I was all alone at night watching
Jeopardy!

And I wonder, is this when the combination of high achievement and feelings of isolation takes the next step into Tiger Personhood? When one doesn't get close enough to anyone to develop sympathy, empathy, or bonds of friendship, it's easier to stay inside the ever-tightening walls of that locked Chinese box.

The Tiger enclosure is a lonesome cage. It's a form of self-imposed solitary confinement. And if I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, I would say, “Honey, let's not all be alpha females in separate cages.”

10

Once when I was a little kid, it was a windy day and I said, “Look, Mommy, the clouds are moving.” My mom said, “No, they're not.” I'm sure she was preoccupied with whatever millionth thing she was doing. But there I was, my insistent four-year-old self. We went back and forth for a long time: the clouds are moving, no they're not, yes, no, they are so moving, I said they aren't . . .

It was an aha moment. I was looking up at the sky and watching with my own eyes as the puffy clouds receded into the distance. I became silent, knowing that my mother was wrong. What insanity was this? How could my mom be wrong when I was still just a little kid? It was my first lesson regarding life being a game that moves as you play.

Folks who haven't been paying attention to the power shift that has brought the East to the forefront are like clueless adults who haven't noticed that the clouds are constantly moving.

Meanwhile, Asian Americans are up and running, and it's GAME ON. We used to be viewed as the model minority. Call us what you want, but we're breaking out of that mold, too. We're not waiting for approval. We're not the droids you're looking for. You don't need to see our identification. Go ahead and think of us in some kind of old way, as last year's model, but we've moved on.

In fact, we are grown up. Maybe we've got children of our own now. So even if we were willing before to not want better for ourselves, from now on, all that hot mess that we endured as kids just ain't gonna cut it. Hybrid life is the wave of the future, whether anyone likes it or not. We have to live in the in-between times, between the blurred borders of East and West, Tiger parenting and vulnerability, between running fast and enjoying the stillness.

Without our knowledge or consent, the world sees us in many different ways: academic cyborg, materialistic princess, dragon lady, or Hong Kong bar waitress. Often, we are defined as “other.” But to us, we're not an “other,” we're just us. We are kind people, dutiful daughters, good friends, hard workers, or maybe emerging artists. Maybe we're finding our way, trying on new ways of being, or defining ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. Or maybe it never even occurred to us to be, or not be, what other people projected onto us. What do we want for ourselves?

We are not fixed constellations. We are constantly morphing, changing our ambitions and desires, figuring out what we want, and mashing it up. We have the right to evolve any way we want, at any time we want. The sky is moving all the time, and even supernovas explode. Then where are you, Superstar? You're in a black hole. So keep moving cuz ya don't wanna get sucked into a dark, dead zone and find you can't escape.

And how, exactly, are we going to carve out our identity in this in-between time, between expectation and reality? How will we manage not to get pulled toward the dark side, that is, a life by default that was never of our own choosing?

By being shape-shifters. We can be what we want to be, but are often many things at once: loyal daughter, workingwoman, athlete, caretaker, stone-cold fox. We can be all these things in one day, changing from one type of person to the next, soft one moment, competitive the next. Throughout these changes, inside we are always ourselves, but we keep that hidden from view. Inside is where we live, where the alchemy happens.

I am referring to women and our myriad opportunities and responsibilities now, but even in ancient China, women were perceived as shape-shifters. Men were believed to be fixed in nature, and not fluid like women. Male “yang” energy was threatened by too much female “yin,” which is often described as watery, and hence women were sometimes portrayed in tales as eels, or water snakes.

In stories from the Ming Dynasty, there were legends of “fox fairies,” beings that appeared in the form of women who were really tricksters with half-animal bodies. Men could be married unknowingly to fox fairies who stole into bed at night with animal prowess. During the day, however, the wife would never be seen without clothes. Why not? Because she was hiding her fox tail, of course! And further, a great part of the allure of bound feet was because women were seen as enchantresses, who were these half-fox beings. The foot as a deformed “hoof” was profoundly enticing. Bound feet were a tradition to keep women at home, but they also caused the hobbled gait that was perceived as attractive. The “fox feet” necessitated a swaying movement, all the more appropriate for a woman who was thought to be changeable and poorly tamed. Through the nationwide practice of foot binding, the fear of women's fluidity and threat of independence was made into physical reality. By this torturous, centuries-old tradition, you could keep your sexy beast at home.

So I say let's turn this ancient idea of women as were-creatures into something that works not against us, but for us. Remember how in
Crouching Tiger
,
Hidden Dragon
the villainess is Jade Fox? She was a trickster, and no one could catch her. She was a little old lady who killed the greatest warrior of them all, Li Mu Bai (actor Chow Yun-Fat). Well, Jade Fox (actor Cheng Pei-pei) was also the one who expertly instructed Jen (actor Zhang Ziyi) in the ways of martial arts, and besides, she only became evil after some dickhead kung fu master dropped her like a hot potato. So I say, add a little Jade Fox to your life. (And throw in a little jade jewelry while you're at it.)

I think of Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd playing the two Czechoslovakian brothers in the
Saturday Night Live
skit. They yell, “Show me to the foxes!”

And we are foxy because we have to be. To have room to breathe, we've learned to move through the crevices, and take advantage of the in-between times. I do all my best thinking between dishes and laundry, between dinner and bathtime. And that's not because I wouldn't love to have an office, but rather by necessity. Who has a four-hour chunk of time to herself anymore?

I love the shape-shifters on
True Blood
. I'm sure a lot of women who are fans of that show have imagined themselves turning into a panther to escape modern life's humdrum routines. We can escape by watching shows with hotties who turn into werewolves (Hello, Alcide!), but maybe the idea resonates with us because we ourselves are already a hundred different things to a hundred different people and are constantly transforming our own selves to accommodate others. We make breakfast, send the kids off to school, go to work, call our parents, dress like sirens, and act like poker-faced CEOs. As the old perfume ad used to say, we “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan. And never never never let you forget you're a man!”

Lady, we're shape-shifters, all right. We move swiftly through life on our thankfully unbound fox feet. We are tricksters every day because we trick ourselves into feeling like we can do it all; we trick people into thinking we are unhurt inside. We keep our true selves hidden in the cave of our silence. Am I at least a little right? Let's pierce through the idea of perfection with an invisible needle. I know we can do it all, but why should we, all the time, every day? Let's take some time for ourselves.

And last, if you feel like you are stuck in a routine, or a job, or with family duties that you just can't abandon, remember that the ultimate shape-shifter is the phoenix. She is a mythical bird who incinerates herself, then rises from her own ashes. She rises again and again, no matter how often she has previously burst into flames. In Chinese art, the phoenix represents the empress. On textiles and porcelains given as wedding gifts, the dragon represents the husband, but the bride is a phoenix. Even in ancient China, it seems, they knew a woman would need to repeatedly rise from her own ashes.

11

What we need is emotional rescue.

You can get straight As your whole life. You can graduate from high school at the top of your class, go to college, and earn a master's degree or doctorate. You can get a job. You are very good at following the rules, but maybe inside you feel nothing but emptiness.

Chinese thinking is very practical. No one asks you questions about your emotions. Or if they do, it's very direct, and impatient, like, “What do you have to be sad about?”