Tiger Babies Strike Back Read Free Page B

was a lot easier than explaining to ESL students that I had to glue together my Pilgrim diorama, memorize the Beatitudes, and finish a report titled “Gruesome Deaths of the Saints.”
    Back in those days, I was just making my way in my grammar-school-aged world. Although I started out as a little kid feeling totally comfortable in Chinatown, lovingly holding my grandma Lucy’s hand as we strolled down the sidewalks, by the time I was a preteen, I already felt like a stranger in the community that first embraced my family.
    Looking back now, I can’t help but superimpose knowledge I’ve gained over the years—the history of Chinese gold seekers, coolie railroad workers, house servants, and thousands of little girls sold, stolen, or given away—on every memory I have of San Francisco’s Chinatown.
    Everything converges in my mind—my grandparents’ early days, my own childhood memories, and the Chinese history I have since learned. All the information and feelings churn inside me as I walk, present day, down those same narrow city streets. I take in the garish colors and silent stares, bright souvenirs and dirty alleys. Glancing around, filled with both humility and pride, I know I am not alone. This convergence of past and present, of old and new, of quietude and bravado, is a particular melancholy familiar to almost every Chinese American.

4
The Defiant Chinese Body
    As a kid, the conflict of feeling both Chinese and American continued to bubble inside me, cooling down or heating up to a rolling boil depending on where I was or whom I was with. Meanwhile, on the outside, my appearance caused its own quiet tension between me and those who inhabited my immediate surroundings. Unlike most other Chinese girls, I was not a flat-chested willow with noodly arms or a long, thin neck. I was a chunky chibbles. What kind of Chinese kid was I? The overweight, American kind.
    Chuy! Why was I so chubby? No one would hug me, but pinching my blubber was a family pastime. My stomach, thighs, face, and legs were all up for grabs. I was a kid who lived mostly in my head, but these pinches of my tender flesh reminded me that my body was not just my own, but also somewhat community property as far as my family was concerned. It was a terrorism of teasing that was often shrugged away as being benign, but kept me feeling bad about myself, mixed up with love. My relatives poked me and said it was all in fun. Moreover, it was somehow supposedly for my own good. You don’t want to be fat, do you? But then . . . What—why aren’t you eating? EAT! You’re lucky you have food. Do you know there are starving people in China? It made my elders happy to see me eat. Didn’t I want to make them happy? Oh. Now look at you. You’re getting husky. Do you want to embarrass me?
    As a child, my body was being quietly, constantly scrutinized by adults. Parents, grandparents, extended relatives, and complete strangers could and would make comments out loud, or silently critique my physique with their smirks or expressions of disapproval. I learned to cover up, or run away.
    Much has already been written about the impossible body standards that girls must navigate, but I think there is an added dimension in Asian culture. There is so much emphasis on saving face and reflecting well on your family that one is constantly scrutinized for the appearance of success. In the old days, maybe if you looked well fed, that could be considered an asset to your family, showing the community that your clan was wealthy and prosperous. That desire to parade you around like a prized pig is still there, and as always, your embarrassment or feelings are not valued. Your body is just one more way in which you reflect well or poorly on your parents and elders.
    At times it seems that every Asian mom is genetically programmed to act like Waverly Jong’s mother in The Joy Luck Club . Remember the scene in the movie