polychromatic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
polychromatic) wrote2019-09-08 08:33 pm
polychromatic) wrote2019-09-08 08:33 pm
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When given the opportunity, I like to take my mom out and "pamper" her in what small ways I can. Whether it's a musical, a spa day, or a simple dinner, I like to make time for the two of us to catch up and to express my appreciation for her. And now that I have a stable income, she is much more likely to cave in and say yes.
(As an aside: I like to try and "pamper" my dad as well, but he's always a hard sell. Paul McCartney's coming to town for a concert? But why would he want to see Paul McCartney, he's not The Beatles! Tickets to the Seahawks game are available? He'd much rather watch the game from the comfort of his own living room anyway. How about going to White Spot for a burger? Eh, he'd rather just have A&W-- no wait, scratch that, he'd rather just have some food from home, thanks. The fact that he said yes to The Beach Boys at the PNE was a huge surprise to me, and that's how I ended up at a Beach Boys concert with six "seniors".)
Movies are an indulgence as well, but it's not often that there's something that both my mom and I are interested in watching. The only sure-bet has been movies featuring Asian characters, which has been far and few between for most of my life. One of my first Christmas presents to my mom was tracking down Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet - a movie she professed to loving and hadn't seen in years. When Lust, Caution came out we watched it together (uncomfortable sex scenes and all) in theaters. I took her to see Crazy Rich Asians, even though I'd already seen it myself, because it was something I wanted to share with her. When The Farewell came out in theaters, it was really only a matter of time.
We had talked about going to see the movie before Bubu's passing, and afterwards we were either too busy or exhausted to follow through. But realizing that this was likely the last week to see it in theaters, I called her up and we arranged to watch it together with Auntie Clara - a family friend staying with my parents at the moment. When they came to pick me up, she told me that her husband had declined to come along and noted "This is the kind of movie only people like us would want to see", referring to her and my mom's shared status as social workers.
(Her point was made when we ran into old colleagues of my mom's who had just finished watching the movie in the showing before ours.)
The Farewell centers on Billi, an Asian-American woman who learns that her beloved grandma - Nai Nai - has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer that is expected to be terminal. Her family has decided to keep the diagnosis a secret from Nai Nai and have cobbled together a fake wedding as an excuse for them all to return to her home in China to see her one last time. Written and directed by an Asian-American woman - Lulu Wang - based on her own experience, this is a movie that has so many small specificities that are unique and universal to being a child of immigrants; how we grow up with one foot planted in the traditions of our home country and the other foot planted in the expectations of our adopted country. And I couldn't help seeing parts of myself reflected in Billi and her relationships with her family, whether it was Nai Nai forcing food on Billi and immediately commenting on her weight at their reunion, her aunt commenting to the massage staff about how her Chinese is lacking, or having to grit your teeth and smile your way through endless "Hello Auntie! Hello Uncle!" greeting at big gatherings. I - of course - went into this movie still very raw from Bubu's passing. I was never going to be able to watch this movie without looking at it in the context of my own life as an Asian-Canadian and having lost both of my grandmothers in the past few years.
One of the conflicts of the movie involved Billie grappling with where she fits in these two disparate worlds and cultures, and that is something I have grown up with as well. Unlike Billi though, I can't remember a time before I came to Canada. I was lucky to grow up in two cities where I had extended family and a decently sized Chinese community to interact with. I had always identified strongly with my Canadian upbringing and I have parents who had both pursued university degrees in the US. My transition - and I suspect even my parents' transition - to living in Canada was a much easier and smoother process than Billi's family, and while they left Nai Nai behind in moving forward, my mom's parents had already moved to Vancouver and my dad's mother bounced around from Hong Kong to Canada under the care of her many children. I also have a much weaker connection to my roots than Billi. While she has distinct and happy memories of her childhood in China, I only have vague fond feelings towards a nanny I know I had in Hong Kong, and nothing more. My first visit back to Hong Kong at the age of six was not a particularly fun experience as I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and was generally quite miserable about it. I came away with a love for bubble waffles and stinky tofu and not much else. I didn't return until I was nineteen and managed to get sick from moving between the hot, sticky, humidity of the outdoors and the frigid blasts of air conditioning when indoors. Our quick jaunts to Shenzhen and Shanghai on that trip were mostly overwhelming and bewildering to me. I was stunned by the extreme poverty I encountered on the streets, and got trapped in a few crosswalks with motorbikes streaming around me, convinced that I was going to die. There was no question that I did not belong, with my limited, slanted, sing-song Cantonese and extreme discomfort in the bustling, raucous environment.
When my maternal grandmother - who I called MaMa - became very sick, my family tried to convince me that I needn't hurry back to Hong Kong to see her. They couldn't - or wouldn't - tell me what her diagnosis was and told me she would wait until May, likely in denial about how serious her condition was. Unlike Billi, I did not have a particularly close or loving relationship with MaMa. She had been dismissive of me and my parents in the past and my dad had not been on speaking terms with her for over five years. Still, she had mellowed out in those intervening years, and I remember commenting to my mom "I've never seen MaMa smile so much when looking at me before" after a short visit for tea and cake with her in 2013. Beyond all that, she was still my grandma, and I felt compelled to see her. So I chose to fly to Hong Kong for a very tough 5 days to say my own farewell. I read a review that talked about how the conflicts of Billi wanting to be able to properly say goodbye to her grandmother vs Billi struggling with her identity as an Asian and an American do not dovetail nicely and therefore interrupt the rhythms of the movie. But that's the complications of real-life, where you can't just set one or the other neatly aside to be dealt with later. In a different way than Billi, I struggled with both of these things during my time in Hong Kong. I visited MaMa every day, twice a day during that period, and there was only one time that she was awake enough to acknowledge me. But she smiled and nodded when my uncles asked if she knew who I was, and she held my hand. She passed away a month later.
I didn't even get to do that for Bubu. When I returned from my time in Washington, my dad drove me straight from the airport to the hospital. Bubu was sleeping fitfully, oxygen at 95%, heart rate jumping from 45 to 145 beats per minute. Even when she opened her eyes, she didn't seem aware. I had to return to work the next few days and wanted to wait until I could go to the hospital together with my mom. I planned to see her after work on Sunday evening; Bubu passed away early that Sunday morning. Despite being so close for most of my life, I didn't get to say goodbye.
The Farewell feels in many ways like it was made for me, even moreso than Crazy Rich Asians was. We don't all get to fall in love with charming men who are secretly wealthy, but we almost all have to go through the grief of losing a grandparent. And the struggle with fitting in to a culture that I don't feel a part of felt more personal and painful this time around. In one of the last scenes, I looped my arm through my mom's, leaned my head against her shoulder, and cried. I'd thought this movie might be cathartic for both of us, but the movie was so overwhelmingly Billi's that I suspect it only had that effect on me.