In the Dark (2022)
When my Ma was angry at me, she would call me by my full name. Other times though, I was either “tsai,” which means “puppy” in Mandarin, or “bao,” which means “baby.”
BY VALERIE GONG
IMAGE BY J W AKA @BAKUTROO
When my Ma was angry at me, she would call me by my full name. Other times though, I was either “tsai,” which means “puppy” in Mandarin, or “bao,” which means “baby.” Despite being an adult for many years, she still insists on calling me “tsai.” Embarrassing, if my Chinese friends are present during my phone call with her. Weird, that I would much prefer her calling me by my full name, even though I had associated it with her anger for so many years and hating it as a result.
When I think of my full name, her body starts to take shape in my head. She is a small woman, a couple of inches shorter than me, which is not uncommon for an East Asian born. Hard to imagine someone with such a slender body would produce such big and explosive emotions. I don’t have to imagine it though; I know the very same trait was passed down to me. Our house never lacked explosive voice-raising and feet-stomping arguments.
When I was twelve years old, I was already a little taller than her, but whenever I did something that displeased her, she would stand in front of my desk in her pink fluffy slippers with crossed arms and pressed lips, and I was right back to being a toddler. I could tell by the narrowing corners of her eyes that she was ready to spit that name out for disapproval. Through all those years of living under Ma’s roof, I had learned early on that talking back would only be the catalyst of another emotional outburst, so I focused on all the other sources of noise instead of her words. Our neighbor sliding their window close because their daughter had started practicing viola. The swirling fan in the kitchen that allowed Ba to pretend not to hear anything while he chain-smoked, when really it wasn’t a secret to us that Ma’s emotion could penetrate any wall, or any other noises nearby. I wondered if Ma could hear that awful viola playing, because all I heard was the screech of a wood log being sawed in half, and the little teeth of the iron blade biting into every fiber, tearing them apart. Push and pull, push and pull.
Years later, when words would finally start to seep into us, I realized that Ma uses names the same way she uses love — steadfastly, with force, and with not much space for disagreeing with her. Ma loves with a love that is full of demand, like the daily warm milk she would bring for me without ever asking if that was, in fact, what I had wanted, simply because “this is good for you, trust me because I know.” She loves with the stories she told me, hoping that what had kept her company during her childhood would become my best friend as well. Though when we talk nowadays, she would only tell me her stories of regret, and the things she wishes she could change in the past. Like those nights she had to leave me home alone to give lectures at night schools as her second job. She tells the hidden stories of the past years, things she had never revealed to me when I was younger — her side of the story, which is mainly made of bittersweetness– and guilt.
“If only I was more patient with you”
“I should have shouted less…”
“Bao, I’m sorry that I left you alone at home for so many nights.”
These are all the things she often says on the phone. The one thing which makes her feel the guiltiest is when I was eight, and I had to heat up a glass of hot milk at night because Ba was on a business trip and Ma was working at the night school. I burnt my tongue because I let the glass of milk spin in the microwave for way too long. I had always been a crier, so that night I called her and cried, then cried myself to sleep.
But we didn’t talk about those things for a long time. Indeed, before the long calls and talks, and the reconciliation, there were years of what I would now call “Shut.” Shut down, shut away, shut up, shut off. I was shut into my own world and space, where only quietness existed, and I could sit in silence and watch everything unfold, and so did Ma, in her own way.
I had vigorously jotted down things I couldn’t directly say to Ma into my journals, until my hand was so sore and my scribbles were no longer recognizable. For fear of Ma finding out and causing another emotional outbreak, I had fictionalized everything I could. Until one moonless winter night when Ma finally found her way to my journals. Aside from being endlessly curious about my doings and thoughts, Ma was also a genius at decoding fiction. Those are the two things I should have foreseen before I even put things down on pages, thinking that I was being smart about it. After all, she is the one who gave me the gift of storytelling.
Ma pulled out the thickest poetry collection on the coldest nights and told me stories of poets and writers from all times. At breakfast, she put on podcasts of folklore and classic literature, and at dinner, she liked to quiz me about what she had taught me.
“What is Li Bai famous for?”
“Being a romantic.”
“Who did Romeo go to the Capulet gathering to see?”
“Juliet.”
“Say again?” she put down her chopsticks and stared at me, as if I just said something completely ridiculous.
“Juliet?”
“What did I teach you?” She asked, crossing her arms.
“Rosaline?”
“Are you unsure of your answer?”
“I’m sorry.” I said, while staring at my toes under the table.
“Do better than be sorry. Next time, listen!”
Next time didn’t come for a few days, because Ma couldn’t trust my concentration of listening to the stories. As a punishment, she simply decided to hold off telling me new stories. She continued to put on podcasts in the mornings, though she stopped commenting on them, because she wasn’t sure I was listening. When the episodes were over, she took her bag and left without rushing me to school.
That night, there was no poem collection or One Thousand and One Nights, only my journal laying open on her lap. When I came home from school, she was sitting on the edge of my bed and staring right at it. “Bao, do you really think I’m such a horrible mother?” Ma said quietly, and the room trembled with her voice.
When did Ma’s outburst come? I no longer remember. Even as I think about it now, it feels as if it could have been shorter in my memory, because for a long time, that was all I anticipated. The truth is, storms and silences come and go in our house, and after a few of them, they all start to blend into each other in memory. I remember that I had no words. Ba was not home yet and without his favourite TV show playing in the background, the house felt as silent as a grave. I desperately wanted a distraction, anything to focus on. Regretfully, that year our neighbour’s daughter had given up viola and picked up piano instead, but she no longer practiced on a daily basis. I wanted to hear Ba’s heavy steps coming closer from the elevator, and his key turning, and the door swinging open. I would rush to my desk while pulling out my textbook, and Ma would get up to greet him as if nothing had happened. But all I could hear was Ma’s breathing, from slow to fast, then almost choking, and finally slowed down again.
We suffocated each other with our lack of words. Back then, keeping our silence after a fight was the kindest thing to do for one another, and not communicating emotions was normal, sometimes, even an act of love.
When Ba came back that night, it was already late, and Ma had brought me a glass of hot milk. She put it down on my desk heavier than necessary, and hurried out of my room right after, not allowing one single glance from me. I went to bed with my heart hanging in my throat. And the next morning, Ma left for work without putting on a podcast for me.
The podcasts and stories returned, eventually, faster than I could pack up the courage to apologize to Ma. I knew she had forgiven me when she stopped leaving for work before I woke up, when she went back to saying, “Bao, pay attention to this, I might quiz you later.”
In 2016, I moved to Canada and changed my name. I chose an English name to fit in but it was also because of how much I resented my full name. Ma keeps calling me “tsai.” She doesn’t really refer to me by any other name anymore, and she never calls me by my new name. She doesn’t know the girl with this new name. She knows Tsai, whom she loves and always wants to spoil. She knows Bao, the baby who grew up too fast, but stays a baby in her heart. She knows me by my full name, the teenager who absolutely enraged her from time to time. And now, this girl with her new name is the stranger who was born in her absence. The girl who pierces her ears way too much and holds regrets about almost all of her tattoos. Who drinks cold milk out of the fridge whenever she wants and no longer reads Li Bai or Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet. But to all the names and identities I have ever owned, she is and always has been, just Ma.
Valerie Gong is a Toronto-based artist and writer. Born and raised in China, her inspiration comes from the various experiences she has with living in different parts of the world. She is currently completing a Television Writing and Producing Graduate Certificate Program at Humber College while also working on the publication of her short story, Time and Times Again.
Image: In the Dark (Unsplash)
Edited for publication by Wendy Mendonca, as part of the Professional Writing and Communications Program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.