Dear Baba - Yuriko Zhang
"This is a letter to my father, written by 18 year old past me and 21 year old present me. The writing in blue is what I've added onto the original letter. My essay offers a story of my Chinese American immigrant family to consider how forces of assimilation and immigration can impact family dynamics. It touches on how as Asian American individuals, my family and I confront and navigate identity, belonging, and the complexities of navigating multiple cultural worlds. A huge source of inspiration for this letter is Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, as I wanted to think about the words that I still haven't said to my own family."
Hidden in College Point is my safe haven, a place where you and I used to go almost everyday after dinner. We walk straight down 121st Street. For a few minutes, we stop at the Taoist temple on 22nd Avenue to admire the sparkling, golden Chinese deities that I don’t recognize, and when I’d ask you about them, you’d feign ignorance. At 25th Avenue, we head towards the tilting trees amidst the worn-down car dealership lot, where the air is sticky with gasoline. It’s next to the rehab center, the place you always warned me I’ll end up in one day if I don’t focus on school.
When we’re finally there, I let Mayumi off her leash, and she immediately dives into the green sea of grass and dirt littered with black tires. The oak roots tear through the cement; I wonder how smooth and leveled the land was before they outgrew their homes. The white graffiti tracing the floor and the walls of the rehab building are fading with every wash of rainfall. As I step towards the water, the dock creaks beneath me, stained green with the East River splashes.
You follow behind, and we sit on the dirty dock, father and daughter. We watch the skyline—the city lights in the distance and the planes departing from the Laguardia airport, where you first touched American soil. We’re both silent; you’re a father who speaks not in words, but in actions. This beautiful view must be a half-assed form of apology, because why would you travel to this beautiful place to be such a shitty dad?
You look down at the boats below us and you say that one day you’ll buy one for us. You’ll take our family on spring break vacations where we’ll fill buckets up with great catches of crawfish and crabs galore. Although I am smiling, I tell you, “That’s useless. We don’t need it.” You insist that this is why you came to this country, to give your family a better and more luxurious life.
Is that why you want to be an American man more than you do a Chinese father? When I was seven, you once drove home with a Harley-Davidson, which to you was one step closer to being the badass Brad Pitt of your childhood dreams. To us, it was just another unnecessary expense in our books. Late into the night, you banged away on an electric drumkit—which I just learned had cost over $700, even though Mama always worked overtime past midnight so she could send me to piano class and the Chinese after school academy. With your headphones plugged in, you were lost in a rock-and-roll dream, but all I could hear was an awful racket of rubber sticks banging against plastic boards while I was trying to study for my next history test.
Sometimes, those moments can be briefly overshadowed. I remember snippets from when I was still small enough to fit in a car seat. Of me blowing raspberries onto your stomach, entertained by the fart-like sound that erupted. Of you carrying me on your shoulders, so I was tall enough to take on the world.
I remember one July 4th when I was nine, when America’s anthem ‘Party in the USA’ was blasting through the car speakers, you turned down the music to the lowest volume. In my brief moment of confusion, you cackled as you passed gas, breaking the silence. It was as if Miley Cyrus’s pre-chorus verse was only announcing the entrance of your gross, but hilarious deed. My little brother and I burst into uncontrollable laughter, as “太幼稚了—So immature!”, yelled Mama through her pinched nose, while she hid an amused smile behind her hand fanning the air in the car. You’ve always been a natural jokester. Regardless of the situation, you always had a sarcastic, silly comment up your sleeve that could force a chuckle out of anyone.
In pictures where I still have a bowl cut and wore the dresses Mama asked me to, I am hugging you with the brightest smile plastered all over my tiny face. There’s one photograph in particular; my hair is in pigtails, I’m wearing a long, black velvet dress with a ruby red satin sash around the waistline. Your hair was pulled into a ponytail, because you were still young and wanted to be a new ‘you’ for the start of the new millennium. I remember the day we took that picture. Mama asked me who I wanted to marry, and as a five year old girl who still didn’t understand how the world works, I told her, “Obviously Baba!” Because when little girls are still little, they see their whole world in their Baba.
But, there’s still that one day, amidst the typical argument you two would have at least twice a day, that I will never forget:
“Stop lying! Why didn’t you come home last night?”
“Why does it matter?! You’re always so sensitive, making a big deal out of nothing!”
“You’re lying to me! Who were you with?!”
“Stop yelling at me!”
“You stop yelling at me!”
—you threw your bowl of rice at Mama. Suddenly, there was silence.
She broke the deafening quiet by slamming her food down and storming away to another room, her broken sobs reverberating through the house. My little brother, too young to understand why you two were fighting, but old enough to know Mama should not be crying, followed her. Then, it was only you and I left in the dining room. Though you didn’t say a word, I could sense your shame; you hid your face in your hands, and I could hear you sniffling. Though I hesitated for a moment, it didn’t take long for me to grab the tissue box to dry Mama’s tears and console her, leaving you to weep alone at the dinner table.
Serves you right, I thought.
I justified my actions and kept telling myself that this is what you deserved—because of all the times Mama cried all night to me about your selfishness; because Mama’s pain showed me you were no longer someone I could trust; because I had to protect my seven year old brother from our reality; because I had to shoulder everyone’s hurt on my own; because ten year olds don’t really actually know anything about the world, so the only explanation for why our household became so broken was believing that you, Baba, were unequivocally the villain.
I still vividly recall the blue porcelain shards and white rice scattered all over our floor. The colors on the floor, combined with your red-hot temper, perfectly matched the flag hanging outside our home.
Do you remember when I was twelve, when Mama was cooking pork chops after working overtime, and you came home from your weekend hunting trip with a bag of foul-smelling meat, expecting your catch to be praised and wow-ed over?
That night, I vividly remember crouching over the toilet and profusely throwing up, lamenting over how that little doe was only a baby.
She was only a child.
##
“Don’t worry. You still have your whole life ahead of you.”
This was the text I received in return, when in freshman year, I sent an essay full of curses and hate to the number of your girlfriend’s son I found on a paper slip on Mama’s desk The recipient informed me that he was actually a nurse in Florida, father to two daughters who loved Elsa from Frozen, and truly “felt” for my struggles. But that was bullshit. Later that night, you texted me to mind my own business. Mama cried when you yelled at her for letting the kids get involved. You’re the one who got the kids involved; I only hated that boy because I hated you. Instead of going to my fifth grade graduation, you went to his high school graduation. Instead of taking care of me and my brother while Mama was getting chemo, you went to Thailand with him and his mother and you all counted down the days to receiving a fat life insurance check. Instead of being my dad, you were his. But, instead of taking my anger out on you, I hatched a petty revenge plan on that tattletale.
First, inspired by some meme I saw online, I put up his phone number on a Craigslist ad for a heifer, so he’d receive relentless spam messages from farmers hoping to buy discounted livestock. Next, I catfished him from my best friend’s phone by striking up a conversation, pretending I was looking to buy some baby cows. Through these conversations, I got to know that evil woman’s son—Xavier, a freshman at CUNY. I sent him pictures of “myself”, who happened to look oddly identical to rookie K-Pop star Jinsoul. I sent flirty and sweet “Have a good day!”s, all while laughing my ass off with my friends. This only lasted a few weeks, until my vengefulness calmed into satisfaction, amused that I had tricked Xavier into believing someone wanted him. However, that shallow pleasure soon flattened into apathy. His earnest replies no longer entertained me. Defeated, I told my best friend to just delete his number.
What did I even gain from this?
Looking back, I feel sorry for Xavier. He may have been stupid enough to catch feelings for an imaginary gorgeous girl whose family had an organic milk business in upstate New York—but really, he was innocent. He couldn’t control his mother’s actions or yours. I remember telling Xavier in my initial text message, “You ruined my life.”
But, I think back to the innocent doe, whose life you ended early. What thoughts were running through its brain in its last moments? It could’ve been angry at itself for not listening to its mother, for being too curious and venturing into parts of the forest it knew it shouldn’t have been. Regardless of what its thoughts were, its anger could’ve only been rightfully directed towards you. It’s not its fault for wanting to explore a new waterhole, to investigate a strange bustling near its home. It’s not the bullet that chose to penetrate its body, shattering its bones to shards. It’s you; you’re the one who made the deliberate choice to go hunting, to kill, to end a life.
##
How could you have tried to end a life that has barely even started?
“你都还没长大呢.”
You’re not even grown yet, you’re only sixteen, you’re not even in college yet.
“你傻吗?”
Are you dumb? You asked me over and over again, your tears soiling the cardboard-rough hospital blanket. Your shaking hands clutched onto my shoulders, but I couldn’t dare look you in the eye. Neither could you.
As much as you continuously berated me and blamed me for my attempt, I knew by the breaking tone in your voice and the way you were showing me more emotion than you ever had your entire life. I knew that you knew you were the one at fault. It was your every action, every misdeed that pulled the trigger.
Should I say something to comfort you? Do you deserve that? I can only look towards my IV bag hanging in front of the window framing a view of other patient units, hidden behindcurtains. I wonder if there are other washed-up fathers crying beside their suicidal daughters’ beds.
##
Your steering is as calm as ever, thanks to the many years you’ve worked as a private chauffeur. Our ride is smooth, with little to no sudden jolts and halts, and the wheels easily glide over every road bump. Your face has the same expression as usual, lines written into your forehead marking the years you’ve been the same old, undependable man. Yet for some reason, you ask me how school is; how’s the friend I stopped talking to; how’s my health. Did you think you were making a huge step in being a better father?
I’m not sure. But when you get me Shake Shack after my therapy session, ask me about which antidepressants I’ve been put on, and take me to buy manga at Barnes and Noble, I feel that you’re trying.
I’m eighteen now, and these days, I think back a lot to pink Laguardia sunsets, golden Taoist temples, and College Point roots gently peeking through cement. How do these views compare to the dirt roads, the dandelion stews, the absent, constantly overworking parents you grew up with? How did it feel, leaving your home of five other siblings at the age of sixteen to go to college in Japan, a country your parents have always cursed to their grave, yet symbolized new beginnings uniquely meant for you? How does it feel, knowing deep in your heart that you are decades past your prime, yet still wanting to chase an adolescent dream of being on the same magazine covers from the Beijing city center, posing with celebrities in American jeans? How does it feel, being attracted to a woman that reminds you of ease and of a youth that has passed, while nonetheless being responsible for a wife, daughter, and son that need you? Will they ever forgive you?
The answer: while that baby deer is rotting away in a plastic bag dyed scarlet with its own blood, and while imaginary heifers are stolen from their pastures and sold by a farmer to buy his own comfort and luxury, you and I are still here.
My therapist asked me the other day to write a letter of all the things I want to say to you. I don’t know what to say. But I hope one day, we can go back to the College Point dock and just look at the airplanes passing, look at the clouds floating away, and remember that like them, we can drift away and come back, too.
##
And we can. We have.
While combing through my Google Drive to try to clean out useless files, I came across this essay again. Originally this was just an assignment I submitted for an English class in senior year of high school. Yet nearly four years later, as an undergraduate senior, I can say that, out of all I have written, this is the piece I am the most proud of. Not so much because of my skill or prose, but more so, I am incredibly struck by how much grace I was able to give you at that age. I am inspired by how much hope teenage me had for you, for us, despite it all.
The peace I feel in our relationship now, is something I never imagined could be possible. But, you should know that this change is not some miracle. What we have today is not some resolution that was always going to happen. This is not just some predestined happy ending that has always been engraved into our fates by Confucian filial piety—which ensures and promises that no matter what, at the end of the day, family is family, and because we’re family, everything between us was always going to end up okay any way.
No. Our today is only possible because we both decided not to run away from each other anymore. Or, maybe, really, it’s because I decided to let you in again, even if that means cracking the door to be just ever so slightly ajar, instead of totally shutting you out. Mama’s nickname for me is 乖乖, an obedient and good child. It’s ironic—Mama, you, and my brother always berated me for the quick temper and seemingly permanent grumpy face I always had growing up. None of you were aware how much resentment I couldn’t help but hold against our family. I myself didn’t even realize just how debilitating those feelings were. It was not until I left, to make a new home for myself at college, that I was finally able to escape from under the roof where for the sake of others, I constantly had to bite my tongue. It was not until I found a therapist who allowed me to rant in circles that I could finally release years and years of my teenage and early childhood angst that I shoved away because I wanted to be a “good daughter.” It was not until I found comfort, instead of guilt, in putting my emotions first—that it became possible for me to let go of the past.
For my sake and for yours, I have realized in order to relinquish the chokehold my pain had on my being, I must honor the viscerality of memories I want to forget. And I must admit the tunnel vision that chained me to a narrow narrative that was so unforgiving to you, although it was the only way that let me make sense of anything—of everything. To try to fulfill these promises to me and my inner child, I’ve added these blue addendums into my original letter for you. They have given me space to confess some of my own shortcomings and immaturity. They also let me appreciate that at the end of the day, it wasn’t all so bad. In spite of everything, we have a lot of happy memories, too. After all, you’re just human.
It’s not fair to either of us that I still haven’t been able to hear your side of the story. I still have so many questions. But I’ve decided, for now, they will stay unasked until one of us is on our deathbeds. That way, neither of us will have to deal with the uncomfortable aftermath that comes with confronting our truths. Just for now, at least, this is enough. To be transparent, even now, I am still really scared and unsure of how to navigate this new, enemy-less territory for us in my adulthood. It’s a bit of a minefield. Sometimes I may explode at you still, because you can’t undo what you’ve done, and it’s impossible to take back the destruction of your own past explosions. But beyond those moments, I love that we often karaoke together. I always save every 1980’s Chinese rock song you show me, because those are the melodies that you grew up with. I smile when you text me Japanese songs, “I think your voice would really pull off this song.” I was surprised that after my most devastating breakup recently, you took me out to a new trendy beef noodle restaurant, even though you usually are extremely intent on eating frugally. These are little things, really small, in fact. But they mean the world—because they let me know that just like how I truly want to break this cycle, you are sincerely trying, too, Baba.
