Expression

misc. thoughts from 08.09.05

Today my mother and I went to visit my grandparents. My grandmother fell down earlier this summer, and her arm is still immobilized because the fracture hasn’t healed. My mother has been going over to see her because she cannot do much without her arm and because she needs company. At first I didn’t understand the needing company part, but if I’ve ever had a conversation with you about “saving face,” it makes a lot of sense. My mom explained it as my grandmother not wanting her friends to think she was “lun jun” (clumsy, accident prone); she hasn’t wanted to go to Chinatown to socialize because she doesn’t want to have to explain it to everyone she sees. A lot of people who aren’t familiar with the obsession with “saving face” would probably think, “What kind of friends does she have!?” But it’s cultural…that’s the way things are. And I’m not saying it’s a good element of our culture, but what struck me about the whole situation is how deeply embedded the desire to “save face” is in the way people think and how far it’s permeated even their every day activities.

At the same time, though, I’m intrigued by what injury/convalescence can bring out in people. Last summer I got to see my dad taking care of my mother when she was going through radiation treatment; that was strikingly contrasted with my dad’s father who wanted my grandmother to go home as soon as possible after undergoing surgery while my parents, aunts, and uncles wanted her to stay in the hospital as long as possible so that she wouldn’t have to go back to doing all the housework until she had time to recover. My mom’s mother who is the dominant person on that side of the family is now dependent on others, which has affected how she expresses her appreciation for her family members. She actually said, “I love you” (in English) to me on the phone last night.

As we were driving to my grandparents’ house in Oakland, I noticed the neighborhood. Not that I hadn’t looked at it before, but this time I realized that a large part of why I never really saw economic disparity because I had grown up going in and out of it all the time. Honestly, when I went to Mississippi with the Racial Equality and Justice, I couldn’t really tell we were in a poor neighborhood because it didn’t look all that different from my grandparents’ (besides being in a different state). Once my apartment-mate in Ocean View was talking about not walking down certain streets on the East Side because they looked “seedy,” but I didn’t really see it. Last summer in Modesto, the other YFC intern didn’t want to drop me off “in the middle of the ghetto,” as she put it, without knowing we were at the right church; I just saw the church. Later that summer I really saw the disparity when we were walking through a South Side neighborhood that had sand/gravel instead of sidewalks on the sides of the streets; as we were walking through, we got a nicer area that had sidewalks and white people (which may or may not have been coincidental because we came across a lot of poor white people as well). Anyway, growing up, I knew that my dad’s parents had more money and that my mom wanted to get her parents out of the “bad part of Oakland,” but I guess I just really got comfortable with it.

Along those same lines, when we got home, my mom was telling me that some of the stuff we got from my grandparents was food they got from the church down the street from where they live. I felt really awkward about it; I felt like we were stealing food from people who need it when we can definitely afford it. After I thought about it, though, I started to get mixed feelings (why does life have to be so complicated?) because going back to the “saving face” issue, it’s almost as if they “need” the food for the purpose of giving it to their children’s families so that they can express their love and feel fulfilled. Especially considering how wealthy my dad’s family is, my mom’s parents would have serious inferiority problems if they didn’t have anything to give us. Anyway, it’s still a really weird situation.

One last observation from my grandparents’ house—I can’t escape the white Jesus! I think my grandfather is a Christian, and my grandmother may be as well; however, their home décor definitely does not give that away. Today I was looking at the pictures they have up since I think they put up some new ones since I’ve been there; to the side of the fireplace, they have a wall with shelves devoted entirely to family photos, and under the bottom shelf, tucked away in a corner, I saw a picture of Jesus (well, actually, a European looking male who I assume was supposed to represent Jesus) surrounded by children. I really wonder where they got that (maybe from the church down the street) and why they chose to display it. It seemed so out of place, seemingly forgotten in a corner of a living room with prominently displayed Chinese figures. It raises questions in my mind about the relevance of Christianity in their lives, not that Christianity cannot be relevant in non-Western cultures (obviously), but I wonder whether they accepted it in an attempt to assimilate.

:: redeemed4hisglory @ 11:11 PM ::