Chinese Grandma
Chinese Grandma is coming to Seattle for her annual visit next week. She comes every year for about 3 weeks, gets us good and fat, and pulls our lives together in the matter of domestics. This time her visit coincides with my trip to Alaska, which is good because she’ll be able to keep Drakey company while I’m off playing Dyke-Barbie-Gone-Fishin’-Bitch in the Last Frontier.
I’m pretty fond of Chinese Grandma. If I had to compile a list of the most interesting people I’ve known in my lifetime, she’d definitely rank in the top 5. Not to mention she’s like the Chinese Grandma that I never had – never having had a Chinese Grandma that is. My two Grandma’s were both 40 shades of white and really just a totally different genre of grandma all together. Chinese grandmas and white southern grandmas are apples and oranges, so there's no comparison and I'm lucky to have had one in both flavors. So, I should first mention that Chinese Grandma is about 150 years old, give or take a few years, but she could probably take me down in any ultimate fighting competition. In the 10 years she’s been coming around, I’ve witnessed Grandma doing the following things that you don’t often get the pleasure to see little old ladies do: 1) uproot a tree in our front yard with a shovel and some heavy duty chains, 2) weed the entire perimeter of our house (in the squatting position), 3) jump a hopscotch course at the local elementary school playground, 4) simultaneously do squats and military presses with 3-Ib. dumbbell weights in our living room, 5) build a fence around my garden, I which I was strictly forbidden to help, 6) turn our abandoned shit-hole garage into a highly organized thing of beauty, and dare I leave out the time when I sprained my ankle (badly) on the way to the airport to fetch her, and Grandma dragged/carried me like a potato sack haunched over her shoulder through the Intl. District while my rude and oblivious (yet perfectly able-bodied) wife skipped along 2 blocks ahead of us.
One of my favorite things about Chinese Grandma is that she can’t (or won’t) speak a word of English and so not being versed in this particular mountain dialect of the Cantonese language myself, we are forced to communicate via hand-signals, frowns and smiles, petroglyphs, and sometimes a short interpretive dance. Negotiating this language barrier for 3 weeks straight is both challenging and triumphant. I guess it’s probably important to note that Drake, no disrepect intended, is a tremendously TERRIBLE translator (half the time only pretending to understand herself) and so I’m truly on my own in this regard. An example – many Chinese words are phonetically the same, but there is a subtle (well, at least subtle to the untrained ear) difference in inflection from raising the last syllable up or down with your voice that can result in two totally different words or meanings, and does not come with a handy and obvious contextual distinction. In Chinese, the word “Ma” means both Mother and Grandmother, but with different inflections. Actually, "Ma Mah" is specifically paternal grandmother and the inflection is on the second syllable as apposed to "Ma" as in Little House on the Prairie Ma. Anyway... as I started to feel more secure in my relationship with Chinese Grandma, I started calling her “Ma” like Drake did. I mean – Grandma’s are universal, right? Once they reach that glorified status of grandmother then it becomes a permanent identifier. Anyway… being the white girl that I am, I didn’t pick up on the inflection issue and it wasn’t until many many moons later when I inquired as to why Drake called her own mother “grandma” that I was informed that I’ve been calling Chinese Grandma “mom” for the past 3 years. yep.
Over the years, I've tried to learn some of the pertinent Chinese words and phrases like “thank you”, “please”, “this food is yummy”, and “what’s for dinner?”, but sometimes Drake doesn’t get them right. Drake taught me that “ho hat” meant “this food is absolutely delicious, thank you so so very much for slaving away in the kitchen for me all day long in order to present us with this undeserved but lovely meal”, of which we both used frequently and for many years until one day when I was bragging in English to my friend at the table about my versatility in the Chinese language, and mentioned “ho hat Ma Mah” while rubbing my tummy and beaming proudly at her, Chinese Grandma started cracking up laughing and making gestures via interpretive dance that meant “you are both wrong and ridiculous”. Drake and I were shocked. For all I know – we were saying “nice fish rocket, would you like to eat a bucket of yoyo’s?” every time we sat down to the dinner table.
These are things that I know:
I’ve witnessed Chinese Grandma speaking 3 different words in English. “Hi”, “No” and “Dirty” all of which are generally directed at my two adoring puppies who follow her around all day long begging for kitchen scraps, which I know she secretly feeds to them because I’m the one who picks up the Kung Pow Poo in the yard afterwards.
Each year I get an extra dollar in my lycee (red envelop) for Chinese New Year which I interpret to mean that I’m continuing to make good impressions on Grandma with each visit. Or at least my interpretive dances are amusing to her.
Last year Chinese Grandma took Drakey's favorite stuffed animal teddy dog and sewed the head back on completely sideways which leaves me in stitches every time I look at that ridiculous looking thing staring at us out the side of it’s head. And she made all three of us matching pajama bottoms out of left over pink and turquoise checkerboard pattern material which we wore for 3 weeks straight around the house at night looking like characters out of some sort of drug induced Sound of Music mocumentary on mixed race nuclear families. It didn’t help that I wasn’t blessed with a Chinese butt nor hips, so mine are a little tight in said areas.
Chinese Grandma knows that I really enjoy these Chinese Chicken Sausages called “Lop-churn” and so I get a whole plate of them – without fail – with every single meal she cooks, for 21 days straight year after year. I’m the type of person who doesn’t even like to eat leftovers because of the redundancy, but this always makes me smile. It’s clearly a thing; an important thing.
She makes soups. Crazy soups made from $100 roots and odd things that have magical healing powers on various organs in our bodies (whatever she decides is ailing) and we have to drink the entire bowl down in one setting. It used to be that only Drakey had to eat these soups, but now they are made with my internal organ functions in mind as well. Which is another important thing.
I’m incredibly thankful to have the experience of a having a “Chinese Grandma” because my own Grandmother’s are no longer with me, and Chinese Grandma introduces us to all sorts of great herbs and medicinal remedies that I find far more effective than g-d Western medicine. I’m not including the time when she attempted to separate my very injured and swallen foot from the rest of my leg by an unexpected and much unappreciated strong, sharp tug that sent electric currents of pain rippling through my entire body and nearly rendering me blind, but we won’t talk about that.
To my Drakey – Chinese Grandma is her “everything”. To be a part of somebody’s “everything” is one of the greatest gifts one could receive.
P.S. I’d post a picture here of Chinese Grandma but I’d want at least the equiv $4 mil price of Brangelina’s new baby (Shiloh Jolie-Pitt) for it, and so far I’ve had no buyers so I’m gonna hold off for now.
I’m pretty fond of Chinese Grandma. If I had to compile a list of the most interesting people I’ve known in my lifetime, she’d definitely rank in the top 5. Not to mention she’s like the Chinese Grandma that I never had – never having had a Chinese Grandma that is. My two Grandma’s were both 40 shades of white and really just a totally different genre of grandma all together. Chinese grandmas and white southern grandmas are apples and oranges, so there's no comparison and I'm lucky to have had one in both flavors. So, I should first mention that Chinese Grandma is about 150 years old, give or take a few years, but she could probably take me down in any ultimate fighting competition. In the 10 years she’s been coming around, I’ve witnessed Grandma doing the following things that you don’t often get the pleasure to see little old ladies do: 1) uproot a tree in our front yard with a shovel and some heavy duty chains, 2) weed the entire perimeter of our house (in the squatting position), 3) jump a hopscotch course at the local elementary school playground, 4) simultaneously do squats and military presses with 3-Ib. dumbbell weights in our living room, 5) build a fence around my garden, I which I was strictly forbidden to help, 6) turn our abandoned shit-hole garage into a highly organized thing of beauty, and dare I leave out the time when I sprained my ankle (badly) on the way to the airport to fetch her, and Grandma dragged/carried me like a potato sack haunched over her shoulder through the Intl. District while my rude and oblivious (yet perfectly able-bodied) wife skipped along 2 blocks ahead of us.
One of my favorite things about Chinese Grandma is that she can’t (or won’t) speak a word of English and so not being versed in this particular mountain dialect of the Cantonese language myself, we are forced to communicate via hand-signals, frowns and smiles, petroglyphs, and sometimes a short interpretive dance. Negotiating this language barrier for 3 weeks straight is both challenging and triumphant. I guess it’s probably important to note that Drake, no disrepect intended, is a tremendously TERRIBLE translator (half the time only pretending to understand herself) and so I’m truly on my own in this regard. An example – many Chinese words are phonetically the same, but there is a subtle (well, at least subtle to the untrained ear) difference in inflection from raising the last syllable up or down with your voice that can result in two totally different words or meanings, and does not come with a handy and obvious contextual distinction. In Chinese, the word “Ma” means both Mother and Grandmother, but with different inflections. Actually, "Ma Mah" is specifically paternal grandmother and the inflection is on the second syllable as apposed to "Ma" as in Little House on the Prairie Ma. Anyway... as I started to feel more secure in my relationship with Chinese Grandma, I started calling her “Ma” like Drake did. I mean – Grandma’s are universal, right? Once they reach that glorified status of grandmother then it becomes a permanent identifier. Anyway… being the white girl that I am, I didn’t pick up on the inflection issue and it wasn’t until many many moons later when I inquired as to why Drake called her own mother “grandma” that I was informed that I’ve been calling Chinese Grandma “mom” for the past 3 years. yep.
Over the years, I've tried to learn some of the pertinent Chinese words and phrases like “thank you”, “please”, “this food is yummy”, and “what’s for dinner?”, but sometimes Drake doesn’t get them right. Drake taught me that “ho hat” meant “this food is absolutely delicious, thank you so so very much for slaving away in the kitchen for me all day long in order to present us with this undeserved but lovely meal”, of which we both used frequently and for many years until one day when I was bragging in English to my friend at the table about my versatility in the Chinese language, and mentioned “ho hat Ma Mah” while rubbing my tummy and beaming proudly at her, Chinese Grandma started cracking up laughing and making gestures via interpretive dance that meant “you are both wrong and ridiculous”. Drake and I were shocked. For all I know – we were saying “nice fish rocket, would you like to eat a bucket of yoyo’s?” every time we sat down to the dinner table.
These are things that I know:
I’ve witnessed Chinese Grandma speaking 3 different words in English. “Hi”, “No” and “Dirty” all of which are generally directed at my two adoring puppies who follow her around all day long begging for kitchen scraps, which I know she secretly feeds to them because I’m the one who picks up the Kung Pow Poo in the yard afterwards.
Each year I get an extra dollar in my lycee (red envelop) for Chinese New Year which I interpret to mean that I’m continuing to make good impressions on Grandma with each visit. Or at least my interpretive dances are amusing to her.
Last year Chinese Grandma took Drakey's favorite stuffed animal teddy dog and sewed the head back on completely sideways which leaves me in stitches every time I look at that ridiculous looking thing staring at us out the side of it’s head. And she made all three of us matching pajama bottoms out of left over pink and turquoise checkerboard pattern material which we wore for 3 weeks straight around the house at night looking like characters out of some sort of drug induced Sound of Music mocumentary on mixed race nuclear families. It didn’t help that I wasn’t blessed with a Chinese butt nor hips, so mine are a little tight in said areas.
Chinese Grandma knows that I really enjoy these Chinese Chicken Sausages called “Lop-churn” and so I get a whole plate of them – without fail – with every single meal she cooks, for 21 days straight year after year. I’m the type of person who doesn’t even like to eat leftovers because of the redundancy, but this always makes me smile. It’s clearly a thing; an important thing.
She makes soups. Crazy soups made from $100 roots and odd things that have magical healing powers on various organs in our bodies (whatever she decides is ailing) and we have to drink the entire bowl down in one setting. It used to be that only Drakey had to eat these soups, but now they are made with my internal organ functions in mind as well. Which is another important thing.
I’m incredibly thankful to have the experience of a having a “Chinese Grandma” because my own Grandmother’s are no longer with me, and Chinese Grandma introduces us to all sorts of great herbs and medicinal remedies that I find far more effective than g-d Western medicine. I’m not including the time when she attempted to separate my very injured and swallen foot from the rest of my leg by an unexpected and much unappreciated strong, sharp tug that sent electric currents of pain rippling through my entire body and nearly rendering me blind, but we won’t talk about that.
To my Drakey – Chinese Grandma is her “everything”. To be a part of somebody’s “everything” is one of the greatest gifts one could receive.
P.S. I’d post a picture here of Chinese Grandma but I’d want at least the equiv $4 mil price of Brangelina’s new baby (Shiloh Jolie-Pitt) for it, and so far I’ve had no buyers so I’m gonna hold off for now.
posted by E-Rae | 2:12 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting article as for me. I'd like to read a bit more concerning that topic. Thanx for giving that material.
Joan Stepsen
Tech pharma
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