Mom doesn’t know I’m going to Taiwan with my boyfriend next week.
For anyone who is the child of Asian immigrants, that’s a big fucking deal. First, friends of Asian immigrants would ask, what are you doing not traveling without your parents? What do you mean you’re not going to visit relatives? What’s it like not to pack an extra suitcase full of jumbo-sized multivitamins and tins of Danish cookies?
And the answer to all of that is, “eh, it’s complicated.”
“Once you get to Hong Kong, you're having dinner with Miao Ai-Yi,” my mom told me in 2007. She has two children, slightly older than you. I called her, and she will coordinate with you to meet at a restaurant.”
I am meeting an aunt and two cousins I have never met before. Although my mom once said offhand that she has a sister who lives in Hong Kong, I don’t remember them communicating directly.
“And there’s something else,” Mom says. “You must pay for dinner.”
Why have I never met them before?
“I know, Ma —”
Why doesn’t Mom talk to any of her siblings? She’s supposed to be the youngest of eleven or twelve siblings. Wouldn’t she communicate regularly with at least one of them?
Mom looks at me, dead in the eyes. “I’m serious. Pay for the bill.”
I’m going to assume this is the part of the story where all the Asian folks are like, “Well, duh,” and the Miami folks be like, “Bro, it’s a bill. What the fuck, lol.”
Essentially, it boils down to something we call “losing face,” and it boils down to this: you can’t owe someone else a favor. If someone owes you a favor, you must repay the favor, or else you look bad. And when you look bad, it gives the other person leeway to talk massive amounts of shit about you.
Like paying for a check at dinner, for example. You fight — FIGHT — to pay the bill at dinner because you’re showing how gracious you are. Never mind, every single person at the table would rather not spend USD 300 for the five-course dinner for a meal of seven.
This is ingrained in every Chinese person, every child of Chinese immigrants. Imagine my surprise when I was at a Chinese restaurant with eight non-Asian friends during my first year living in Miami. “I got this,” I exclaimed, flashing my credit card once we got the bill for dinner.
“Sweet! Thanks, Ernie!” said the table.
Twenty minutes later, I’m fuming in the passenger seat as we’re driving home. “I don’t get why you’re so pissed off,” Kareem said as I pouted. “You offered to pay for the meal.”
THAT’S NOT THE POINT, I yelled.
Miami took some adjusting.
I take my friend Bel to a restaurant in Hong Kong. Bringing Bel to dinner makes sense: She speaks Cantonese, while I talk broken Mandarin. She is also female, hopefully minimizing the “Why are you single?” questions.
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