WiTW 1-1

Walking in Two Worlds - this may seem trivial, but a great portion of the memories Chinese-Americans have about home are about the aromas, mainly from food. It's not been an issue until my living situation changed and I went from being a landlord to a tenant - and having landlords who were/are extremely sensitive to the smell of food. It is actually one of the most jarring changes to my lifestyle that I have foregone not just making certain dishes, but even foregoing using certain cooking techniques and even using certain spices in an effort to minimize smells in the kitchen.

I'm not starving or anything, but it's had an impact on my morale that I didn't recognize until today. I miss cooking and eating certain dishes I've eaten for decades. On the flip side, I'm probably eating healthier as a consequence, but there are just trade offs that just aren't worth it to one's soul.

Walking in Two Worlds

This one's been germinating for a while. The seed's been there all my life, but I suppose it got exposed to the elements by reading an article in an alumni magazine about how a student ending up doing two different internships during a recent summer break. It was personally poignant as the student's parents turned out to be Chinese immigrants from the same region of China that my parents  originally emigrated from. The first internship was in Washington D.C. where all his fellow interns' parents were all people with influence within the Beltway able to pull strings while his immigrant parents run a Chinese restaurant in a small city in Michigan. While his peers' parents were actively involved in furthering their careers, conversations with his parents are limited to topics such as how to make rice porridge. Unable to explain how he wishes to be an international policy maker in terms of immigrant migration, he's told his parents that he helped his teacher while in Washington, and that he wants to be a teacher someday. At the same time, he wants his goals to bring honor to his family.

There's a lot of memories dredged up by this article, but the ones that resonate most deeply at the moment are tied to the struggle of living in two different worlds trying to reconcile the differences between in the values of my parents' ethnic culture and what I will loosely describe as American culture. Let me try to explain. I've lived in southern California for almost 30 years now. I feel a lot more at home here than I ever did living in the midwest. I'm still different from most people - but no one is like anyone else here. Instead of one dominant culture out here, LA consists of a number of different subcultures, even within different ethnic groups; a therapist who treats only asian-americans was at first fascinated by me where we first met: an american asian from the midwest, who didn't act or speak like any other asian male he'd ever met. A Nisei (Japanese-american) himself, raised in the (San Fernando) Valley, he told me that when speaking to any other LA-raised Nisei, within a few minutes he could discern where that person had been born and raised: the Valley, Little Tokyo, the south bay (Gardena), etc. There is no one-size-fits-all story to express the Asian-american experience. But that's not going to stop me from trying to identify the commonalities. (And there's an even more profound difference that I didn't recognize until recently; the culture is different here because western/central european heritage and traditions really don't exist here. The immigrants by a huge majority come from elsewhere. So the dynamics are different here.)

So as I continue to explore what it's meant to walk in two worlds, I'm going to need to keep reminding the reader that while a lot of my experience will be applicable to many fellow asian-americans with immigrant parents, a lot of it might not.

Mad As A Hatter

I recently discovered a song on youtube with this title written by a two sister band called Larkin Poe (they recently did a great album of blues covers called "Peach". Find a copy).  The lyrics (written for their grandparents who apparently suffer from some sort of dementia) follow:

I know what time is, Time is a thief. It'll steal into bed and rob you while you sleep. You'll never feel it. It pulls off the covers, and rifles through your head. Then you'll wait to find you can't remember what you just said... It happens to everyone... Just like the father of my father, time stole his mind and I can't forget that one fourth of his blood is mine I try not to worry... ~~~ PLEASE don't come for me I promise I'll be great Just let me keep what's mine. Please don't come for me, If you must then just please wait and let me have some time. Please don't come for me. Mind over matter when you're as mad as a hatter... ~~~ It's hard to draw a clear distinction When you are who you are. Through the looking glass, the past and future begin to blur though I keep playing Well they say the world is what you make it you think, speak and breathe. and those rules solidify, stuck in a world of make believe. You make the best of what you are given.... ~~~ Off with the head, off with the head... paint the roses, paint the roses.... Please...
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While we don't know all that much about Alzheimer's, it's believed that genetics play a large part:
I can't forget that one fourth of his blood is mine I try not to worry...
My mother is now exhibiting symptoms of Alzeimer's. And as I've aged, I've become aware that my mind is no longer as agile as it was 20 years ago. So I suppose it's a mix of fear and anxiety that prompts me to imagine my exhibiting these symptoms someday.

I find it ironic as I contemplate losing more than most; when I was five, my teachers asked me to read some college textbooks for them. And I did. I didn't understand the fuss. I got accustomed to being able to see/perceive things in a certain way, and getting skeptical/incredulous looks when I tried to explain how I reached that conclusion (which typically turned out to be correct). The best way I've come up with explaining it after a number of decades is that I just connect the dots. Patterns exist. I see them. This also allows me to see changes in the pattern as well. (That's how I perceive music as well - patterns and contrast. More on that in another blog post.)

While I wouldn't trade what I can do with my mind for anything, having this ability has also come with a cost in how I can relate to others. For want of a better way to put it, I've let myself be anxious about other people feeling dumb and I've deliberately filtered and stifled my contributions to many conversations. I'm doing it even now, when I desperately want to be able to just sit around in my mental underwear and just let it all come out. It's a bit like driving a car that's got unlimited HP, but also has a governor that prevents you from going more than 55 MPH on the highway. Instead of just letting my brain work, I focus a lot of conscious effort on minimizing the risk of making others feel dumb.

Who's the madder one?

It's complicated even further because I often express things with snark that conveys the element of humor in the thought. The snark is almost never genuine - but it's also never completely irrelevant. Fortunately, I do have a small group of friends who let me do the equivalent of sitting around in my mental underwear and speak freely,

I guess I've let this train of thought meander. My mom's mind is going. I fear I'm only a few miles back on the same path. And it's further complicated by the ambivalence I've struggled with concerning my intellect. And there's something else I have yet to mention - the prospect is even more daunting as I remain single with no offspring. But that's an anxiety I can deal with.

Fear vs. Anxiety - or is it Pride?

This topic is an extension of my (most recent) previous post concerning the type(s) of fear that prevents us from accepting certain truths which in turn allow us to reach different (and more intellectually honest) conclusions.

Now, if someone is wielding a box cutter and is poised to stab me in the neck because they want to kill me - I *should* be afraid. In my case, I never saw it coming. So I never had the time to be afraid. However, a few weeks later, while I was back at the park engaging one of the homeless in conversation, I was asked if I wasn't concerned about being attacked again. Right at that moment, another homeless person came up and hugged me from behind. My response: "If I really was worried, *that* (being hugged unexpectedly from behind) should have freaked me out." The point is that it's not really fear but anxiety when you are worried about something that *might* happen.

For want of a better word, fear is legitimate and should be the normal response to actual danger. I'm not sure it applies to people who need to be right all the time - the only real danger is to their own self images - which could probably use a little deflating anyway. Perhaps it's pride more than fear which is the prevailing emotion that needs to be checked. It seem to require humility to consider the possibility that one might be wrong. So perhaps it's more about conquering anxiety and pride that allows us to make truly informed choices?

Good decisions

I find it odd how we pride ourselves on making "informed" choices - yet emotion is still pretty much the determining factor when it comes to the choices we make. The reality is that we are not rational beings as much as we are rationalizing beings.

But there's another factor and I was compelled to clarify it as I recuperated from a near fatal attack back in 2013. For those who don't know the story, I was feeding the homeless when someone attacked me with a box cutter, severing the anterior branch of my carotid. Although my attacker went to trial and was found guilty of premeditated attempted murder, she was also declared insane, rather than being evil and as a consequence she was sent not to jail. but to a state psychiatric hospital where she's expected to remain for the rest of her life. This prompted me to ask the question: what does it really mean to be insane?

I found the following quote by G.K. Chesterton compelling:

"The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason."

He went on to explain that such people are working with a limited universe of facts, so they have no way of avoiding coming to the same conclusion over and over.

Again, it seems that emotion plays a part in this also. Even when things can be shown to be factually true, people will often refuse to accept these things. Acceptance of fact ends up being an act of will vs. intellect. And it all boils down to fear, though the category/object of fear can vary from person to person. For some, fear of their self-image being diminished results in the coping mechanism of needing to be right all the time. And the more fragile they are in relation to their egos, the more deeply entrenched they'll be in this behavior. For others, it's the kind of fear that accompanies an event in one's personal history.  The fear accompanies the desire to avoid re-experiencing that personal pain. And there are other types of scenarios I imagine that we've all seen in others, or ourselves.

It occurs to me that people could be helped if they could be made to feel 'safe' so as to be able to accept whatever truth it is that they currently can't embrace, prompting them to make flawed decisions over and over. The problem, truth is almost never "safe". It often requires a lot of courage and strength to embrace certain truths.

The bottom line: I've come to believe that the ability to make good decisions is commensurate with our ability to identify and conquer our own fears.

Can't Go Home Part 3

Mom is now in Milwaukee. I'm not sure if she got a chance to see the house again. But she can't go home either. My dad, who was hoping that he'd be able to stay in the house alone, gets to stay by himself for maybe another month before the house is sold - at which point, it'll be final. It's one thing to choose not to go home. It's another thing to have the choice denied you.

...And Now I'm Back - And Why

I wish I could have successfully shared with my parents the non selfish reasons for wanting to be back. Actually, even sharing the selfish reasons might have been cathartic.

1) the diversity - being a minority among so many other minorities out here makes it easier to feel like I fit in here,Then there's the food - access to ingredients (domestic and foreign), fresh produce prices, the ability to try so many different ethnic cuisines. It turns out that the area of southern California where I reside is home to the largest and most diverse assortment of regional Chinese cuisines outside of China. Five years ago I began exploring and visiting these restaurants weekly. I've managed to visit maybe 25% of the 800+ different Chinese restaurants in the area as I've since diversified to include Korean & Mexican cuisines nearby in east LA as well as Koreatown.

2) the weather. 'nuff said.

3) the dancing. As my dance background includes ballroom, west coast swing, salsa, blues, etc. It's possible for me not only just to find some place to dance that night, I can also typically find a place to do so to live music, especially in the summer.

4) the music. listening, performing, teaching, the last providing a nice segue to less selfish reasons I'm reluctant to leave LA:

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The teaching: I'm currently providing instruction in piano, guitar & violin to a number of students. I'm also tutoring at a local para-school tutoring where my mentor has noted that I'm often counseling my students as much as tutoring them when I get assigned students whose parents, in a fit of anger, are screaming F-bombs at their kids, or have apparent separation anxiety in relation to their mothers, etc. I'm also tutoring chess as part of an after school program. One teacher has noted that two of the students are autistic but there's little evidence of that in their behavior as they concentrate on chess. Other kids respond to seemingly insignificant things like remembering their name.

My working with the homeless. I've invested 7-8 years developing relationships with some of the people who show up - not only have I become a friend/confidant, I've been befriended by them as well. My current living situation is a result of one of the homeless knowing of my need to find housing and bringing a specific ad to my attention with a comment along the lines of a feeling that this is somehow meant to be. A person who used to come to dinner got an interstate job driving trucks. He plans to build up a stake so that he can quit, move back to LA, buy a car so he can Uber/Lyft to make a living - and come back and help volunteer on Tuesday nights.

The bottom line is that I am now consciously embracing the idea that I'm here to make a difference - and that's going to continue in ways I can't even imagine at this point as I make a conscious effort to break the pattern of behavior that's prompted me to stifle myself. That topic deserves its own post.

I Went Home

...and I also returned home, back to LA last night.

In my last post, I was wrapping up a visit to see my parents, and completely unaware that the most significant part of the visit had yet to occur.

After treating Dad to both lunch and dinner for his 95th birthday, Dad told me that he wanted to buy me lunch - at McDonald's. The place happened to be on the same street where a place called Red Barn was located - a one off burger joint that was the defacto place to go the few times we went out to eat. It was like coming full circle.

My Dad & I had already spoken a number of times about selling the house and his moving to Milwaukee, but I knew I had to make it clear that I wasn't going to move back to CLE so my Dad could continue to live in the place he'd called home for the last 48 years. So I simply told him that I knew he wanted to stay in Cleveland, but I wasn't going to move back to Cleveland to take care of him. He asked me why.  I had planned to bring up an incident in the past where my father's sister & brother in law demanded that he quit his job and go back to work for them doubling or tripling his commute time - and he'd refused - but I just simply said that I couldn't. He paused for a moment, and then began talking about all the unknowns he'd be facing with the impending move; various ways he'd be giving up his independence, not having a car, having my sister cash his SS check and give him an allowance. All I could do was respond with an occasional soft: "I know." and just keep listening. Eventually, he went on a rant about all the lip service he'd experienced from well meaning people in town offering to help with none of them following through. Again, I just listened. I'd like to think Dad could see the empathy expressed on my face - but elderly Chinese tend not to look at the person they're talking to when the topic is a serious one. After the rant ended, he asked me how long I'd lived in LA, and I told him 29 years. He paused for a bit. I hope it's not some sort of chinese curse; he then wished me good luck when I went back to LA and we hugged.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I know for sure that I heard my Dad talk about his fears for the first time. I'd like to think that he knows that I listened to and heard him. And that is huge. I'd also like to think that he accepted my choice and sent me back to LA to live my life with his blessing. I guess we'll see.

You Can't Go Home - Part Two

My flight back to LA is in about six hours. I''ll take my dad to lunch (he's requested mcdonald's, but it feels strangely appropriate for reasons I might explain later) and then go visit mom & then take public transport out to Hopkins (international airport).

It's a surprise to discover that I'm quite ambivalent about my return to LA. Recently I read an article in an alumni magazine written by a fellow toisan chinese currently enrolled at my alma mater (go blue!). This person spent his summer doing two internships, one in Sarajevo (sp?) and also one in D.C. in the State Department where all his fellow interns were pretty much all local kids with high powered D.C. connections while he (like me) is the child of chinese immigrants who've been in the restaurant business.  He's not even able to explain to his parents what he did during his internships - his conversations with his parents revolve around topics like how to make rice porridge or the antics of his brother. His goal is to be able to influence foreign policy on immigration but the best he can do is explain to his parents that he wants to be a teacher. My experience has been similar for decades, and it's been the cause of a lot of frustration. It wasn't much different the past few days, but I feel more connected in a way I hadn't anticipated. Hence the ambivalence; before I left, friends had asked me what my goals were and, having anticipated a lot of drama that failed to materialize, my response was mainly survival.  I guess the best way I have to describe it now is that I have closure - whatever that means.

You Can't Go Home - Part One

Or so goes the title of the Thomas Wolfe tome. While I'm back in NE Ohio right now, this will become true shortly; my parents are no longer capable of living unassisted and will be moving out of state. The house where I spent my formative years is to be prepped for sale. Once the house is sold and my parents are relocated, I will have no reason to return to NE Ohio.

Unlike George Webber, I have a chance to take of some unfinished personal business on this trip.  I think I managed to do some of that this morning. I'll see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense. It starts with my personal conviction that it's the fathers who affirm their children into adulthood. Mother affirm unconditionally, while fathers must make a conscious choice to affirm their children. So I came home this morning while my dad (2 days short of his 95th birthday) was mowing the lawn. I decided to help. This needs to be said to emphasize the significance of this choice. This was probably the first time I helped my dad with anything since my adolesence. My father was the type of person that if you couldn't do something as quickly as he could, he would get impatient and just take over the task himself. As a result, I really didn't gain the confidence to take care of things around the house until well into my 30's. Anyway, not only did I end up edging the lawn, tree lawn and clearing away plants overgrowing the front porch and hose off the grass on the side of the neighbor's car parked next to the tree lawn, my dad also pointed to the side of the garage and asked me to clear away all the weeds that had taken over. It wasn't a big thing in the grand scheme of things, but it was a big deal to be deemed competent enough to do so.

The flip side of this is knowing that while he's agreed to relocate to be near my sister, his cronies from the old country have been telling him that it's *my* responsibility to move back to NE Ohio to take care of him until he passes on. Now I must find a way to communicate to my father that I will not be doing this.

Mortality

For those who don't know me,  who I am today is profoundly shaped by my being attacked in 2013 by someone wielding a box cutter who managed to sever the anterior branch of my carotid. I spent the better part of 3 months recuperating from that - physically, yes, but also emotionally & spiritually.

I find myself compelled to examine mortality again.  But it's very different this time; instead of facing my own mortality stemming from an unexpected swift and potentially brutal attack, I'm now dealing with my parents and their diminishing health resulting from a slow and inexorable passage of time. My mother slipped and fell and she went from the hospital into assisted living care. From there she will be transported to an assisted living facility in another state in the city where my sister resides. My parents moved into their current home in 1970. My mother laments that she will probably never see her home again. My father will turn 95 this coming Monday. He's no longer capable of living alone by himself. He's agreed to move along with my mother to where my sister resides. But his Chinatown cronies are telling him that I should move back to Ohio to take care of him. I have to find a way to tell him that my moving back to Ohio is not going to happen. It's complicated. Anyone who just hears my voice without seeing my face is incapable of discerning my ethnic heritage. But every day I walk with one foot each in one of two often mutually exclusive cultures, and it's most complicated when it comes to relationships and obligations. The short version is that asian cultures in general are community based and relationships and obligations that accompany those relationships factor into the choices and behavior while western cultures tend to celebrate individuality; the privilege of making choices for one's self is viewed more as a right. The needs of the many vs. the needs of the few - or the one...

My mother's' choices illustrate that. When she fell, she actually postponed going to the hospital four (4!!!!) days, lying in bed in excruciating pain - because she knew that if she went to the hospital, my father would be home alone. He requires assistance every morning pricking his thumb for his blood sugar test. My mother finally went to the hospital when my sister drove eight hours from where she resides and took my mother to the hospital. After her X-ray/diagnosis - she cracked her tail bone - the case manager forbid my mother from going home. She was discharged into a assisted living facility about four blocks from home. My dad has been making food and taking some to her every day.

I guess the best way to put it for now is that instead of pondering the randomness of death, I now ponder its inexorability and how to respond to that.

Anthony Bourdain

For those who don't know me, the brightest constellations in my personal universe are food/cooking, music, dance & teaching/writing. When it comes to food, one of stars I sail by is chef/author/TV personality Anthony Bourdain. He apparently hung himself earlier today. It's especially poignant as I'd recently gotten the last work of his I hadn't read yet and I'd finished reading it earlier today when I heard the news.

I have every episode of a Cook's Tour, No Reservations and Parts Unknown backed up on my computer so I can watch them whenever I want.  Not only have I (finally) read everything he's written about food, I've even read his works of fiction written while we was still working as a chef. His intelligence was obvious, and I had great affinity for his sense of snark, but what I respected most about him was his level of intellectual and emotional integrity. He was always honest (and also disclosed when he was holding back out of respect for what it takes to be a chef) and at times his anger got the best of him when expressing opinions, but he could acknowledge when he'd gone too far and apologize. He'd traveled and seen enough to be open-minded when meeting people whose world view was mutually exclusive with his. He put it this way in "The Nasty Bits":

'...I mean, if I can drunk with a bunch of probably murderous Russian gangsters and have a good time, why can't I get along with an evangelical Republican from Texas?'


He'd managed to overcome addictions to crack & heroin and parlayed a tell-all book about the restaurant industry into a career many foodies including me, envied: traveling the world exploring ethnic cuisines and getting paid handsomely for it. Granted, the career had its pitfalls, his wife recently divorced him because he was typically on the road eight months of the year, but he was currently dating actress Asia Argento. And while he was on the road (in France), his best friend Eric Ripert (head chef at Le Bernardin in NYC) was traveling with him (and was the one who found the body). I find it unfathomable that even with his best friend close by to confide in, he chose to take his own life. Frankly, I'm stunned.

I'm going to go have a drink and a cigar and further contemplate his passing.

RIP.

Tta Roh Guk Bap

The unusually warm weather we've been having this February (highs in the 80's) has apparently come to an end. Not that it gets all that cold here in southern California - the high will be around 60 degrees for the rest of the week with lows in the 40's. But it's enough of a change to get me to try something different this morning as I perform my weekly Korean breakfast soup special, and I have ordered Tta Roh Guk Bap, spicy beef soup with brisket and dried cabbage. It seems more appropriate  as I discover condensation on my car windshield this morning.

I don't know if it's a good omen that the dried cabbage reminds me of the soups my mother would make with various dried Chinese vegetables when I got sick as a child; I've been fighting a sinus infection for over two weeks now. I finally relented and started an antibiotic regimen (500 mg amoxicillin twice daily) but frankly, I put more faith in the restorative power of asian soups and vegetables. At the very least, I'm looking for the spicy kimchi to help clear my sinuses as I use the pair of scissors on the table to cut the cabbage kimchi into bite size pieces to make them easier to eat with mouthfuls of my brown rice. The rice is actually closer to purple in color but that's not an issue to me as I dump the cabbage kimchi and the rest of the juice into my rice bowl. I'm sure I'm violating all sorts of Korean customs by doing so - and more so by picking up my bowl and using my chopsticks to shovel the contents of the bowl into my mouth. Unlike other Asian cultures, apparently Koreans do not pick up their rice bowls. So I try to do this only when no one seems to be watching. But I'm sure that they know - somehow. Maybe they check for fingerprints on the sides of the bowl or something.

Between the spice level and the funk of the dried cabbage, I sense no need to add salt like you might for sul long tang. The spice level has prompted me to perspire freely on my forehead and neck - the reaction to capsaicin routinely embarrasses me as I use up all available napkins trying to dry off. I am initially disappointed that the spice level does not seem to have had any effect on my sinuses. But then I sneeze and the subsequent attempt to blow my nose suggests that my sinuses are in fact clear of phlegm. So I apply pressure to the middle of my upper lip, momentarily prompting the blood vessels in my nose to expand and I am breathing normally. It appears that the soup and spices have done all they can, and I'm forced to check when I need to take my next dosage of amoxicillin. But never underestimate the restorative power of an Asian soup - especially when it's made by an elderly Asian women. I guess that's the point of this post.

D.L.G.

I began tutoring part time late last year. My initial goal was to leverage my ability to do well on  standardized tests and charge a premium for helping others improve their SAT/ACT scores. That's still a long term goal, but the company I currently work for has given me mainly elementary school age children and I'm more than a bit surprised to discover how much I enjoy working with my students. Some of it's that I perceive that I'm making a difference and I can already see more than one student begin to get through the required material more quickly.

But most of the newly discovered joy has come from getting to know my students. I'm beginning to regret in a serious way the fact that at my age, I am not likely to father a daughter to raise as I have begun to understand the meaning of the phrase: "daddy's little girl". As I begin to mourn this loss, it occurs to me that there are so many women who, for whatever reason, never got to be "daddy's little girl" either. And I can't help but wonder how much of an impact that's had on how the current culture is today.