The nearby conversation over the phone faded away. Slowly, as I reflected on my thoughts, I anticipated the imminent future where I would be living with a step-mom. Good relationships cannot be willed into existence. I wasn't willing to, nor did I need to adopt another parent. The fact was: I was completely content with my life until my father decided to remarry. It dawned on me that when we would spend time together, it would no longer be as intimate an experience. After all, two is company and three is a crowd. I just knew she would be that elephant in the room for me; the reason why I could no longer relax and be myself with my dad. The list of habitation issues I managed to come up with were too hefty to even consider. But above all, it was the mere fact of looming change that scared me into submission, and later retaliation. After all, life was great as is. Why fix something that isn't broken?
The following morning, I woke up irritated to the sound of my alarm for school. Reluctantly, I pulled on a pair of grey sweats and stopped on my way downstairs to stare at the blanket of fresh snow on the roads outside. It was an awesome break in my luck. There was at least three inches of snow heavily coating the once dingy brown that defined my front yard. Thrilled with the weather, I headed downstairs truly excited for the first time in a while. To my surprise, as I grinned down the stairs, I noticed my dad at the front door. A woman stood in front of him, shivering from the sub-freezing temperatures outside. He kindly greeted the woman in Mandarin saying, “Hurry and come on in.” I fixed my eyes on a slim Taiwanese female who stood at approximately 5’7 with sleek, black hair, nut-brown eyes, and a straight nose. She wore a fashi...
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...had a legitimate conversation in place.
As I was about to walk off after breakfast, Anita comfortingly told me, “I just wanted to let you know that there is no pressure for you to like me right off but it would be great if we could become friends.”
“Alright, I’ll think about it.” I replied.
Her words were reassuring, and being friends sounded good. Nothing was being forced on me. It was just me getting to know another person and possibly becoming friends. By simply establishing conversation, a strong relationship lies only at an arm’s reach. First impressions are important, but honest intentions drive friendship to new levels. In a matter of weeks I felt considerably more comfortable asking for help, questioning her decisions, and even engaging in active discussions on controversial topics. I guess, in the end, I didn’t lose because I gained a lifelong friend.
Judy Fong-Bates’ “The Gold Mountain Coat” discusses the childhood of the narrator who is a Chinese immigrant living in Canada. The narrator, even at a young age, possesses such admirable keen observation as she is able to notice the environment and even the situation of people around her. Living in a small town that is “typical of many small towns in Ontario” with only one Chinese family neighbor, the narrator is the only Chinese child. With the nearing day of arrival of John’s family, the narrator feels uneasy of her new responsibilities.
“The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,
Almost twenty years ago, around this time of the month, you had a baby girl on November twenty-six. Like every parent you are happy, smiling at the baby, holding my hands and taking pictures. I grew up, stood up, walked for the first time, said my first words, and lost my baby teeth. It’s time for me to go to my first day of school; you don’t want me to go because you got use to my presence in the house. Meanwhile, you are low-key wishing for me to stay a baby girl, when you know perfectly that it isn’t going to happen.
Growing up in California, Tan continued to embrace the typical values of Americans. She had taken on American values as her own identity, completely ignoring most of her Chinese heritage. In fact, young Amy Tan would answer her mother’s Chinese questions in English (Miller 1162). Teenage Amy Tan lost both her father and sixteen-year-old brother to brain tumors. Soon after that, she learned that she had two half-sisters in China from her mother’s first marriage (“Amy Tan Biography”). In 1987, Tan made a trip to China to meet those very same ...
My mother moved to Virginia and I struggled with true feelings of loneliness and despair after my parents separated. According to a 2010 family journal, "Of all familial relationships, the mother–daughter one is most likely to remain important for both parties, even when major life changes occur, such as the daughter’s marriage or mother’s illness." I lacked the guidance and support of that I needed from my mother after she moved away. My siblings and I spent time with my Mother once a week on Thursday evenings. She would often arrive late and carelessly, which I took very personally. I didn 't feel that my Mother possessed strong credibility and found it difficult to believe her. Therefore, I became hesitant in following my Mother 's advice or listening to her requests. My mother attempted to gain back power by using coercive power. If I failed accept her influence she threatened a punishment, but if I listened there was a reward. For example, if she felt I was being ungrateful she would threaten to send me back home to my Father. My mother 's use of coercive power fostered a lack of trust and created a substantial amount of tension between my mother and
The most supportive of friends are manifest during life’s toughest of obstacles. They are the ones that help us power through the storm. Karen Karbo claims, “Most of us would prefer to think that we love our friends because of who they are, not because of the ways in which they support who we are. It sounds vaguely narcissistic, and yet the studies bear it out.”(156) while Yvette and I stated off as simple associates, she was soon to be reviled as my most supportive friend. She was just another co-worker. However, after our bosses went through a divorce, our most dependable co-worker moved, and another reunited with her drug habit, Yvette was the only one I could depend on. Together we became an unbreakable team. We could run the front office without any flaws. Since our friendship was growing we became even more supportive of each other, if one was slacking the other would step up and make sure the task was completed. We would switch off on answering the phones and taking on a challenging customer. Occasionally we would go out for a drink to destress from work. We had just started taking our girls out on play dates, and hanging out on weekends. One night my mom called me to let me know she had made other plans for the following night and I needed to figure out another arrangement for my daughter. Most nights I depend on my mom to watch my daughter so I can go to class, and when she is unable my sister will step in. In
Both novel and short story collection reflect the fear of a past being unexplored and left behind. They express deep concern about a lost generation of Chinese-Americans and look desperately for the ignored, shut out past as a result.
... the solution. Her logic was that if she doesn’t have to see me everyday, then she won’t be reminded of her past, and her life will be better. In an attempt to make her life less stressful, she contacted my father about me going to go live down in Texas with him, not because of something I did, but rather the factors I can’t control created a nuisance in her life that could so easily be taken care of by me being flown away. As mean as it may sound, my own father saying he didn’t have enough time, money, or room for me, was a relief for me because of the fright I still have inside me against him, yet, it meant having to continue putting up with the mistreatment from my mom. Just how for Connor, the choices to run away or be unwound both seem undesirable and unpredictable, I know that my conflicts too, must be faced in order to keep moving on with life.
Yang, Gene Luen, and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006. Print.
As I walked out of the courthouse and down the ramp, I looked at my mom in disappointment and embarrassment. Never wanting to return to that dreadful place, I slowly drug my feet back to the car. I wanted to curl up in a little ball and I didn't want anyone else to know what I had done. Gaining my composure, I finally got into the car. I didn't even want to hear what my mom had to say. My face was beat red and I was trying to hide my face in the palms of my hands because I knew what was about to come; she was going to start asking me questions, all of the questions I had been asking myself. Sure enough, after a short period of being in the car, the questions began.
Lindo Jong provides the reader with a summary of her difficulty in passing along the Chinese culture to her daughter: “I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it's no lasting shame . . . You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head . . . In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. . . . but I couldn't teach her about Chinese character . . . How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why Chinese thinking is best”(Tan 289).
It all started the day I woke up to my parents arguing. It was a warm morning, but you couldn't see the sky thanks to the thick and ashy dust clouds. I walked downstairs and my parents turned and looked at my. My mother greeted me with a warm smile and sighed “sweetheart we have to tell you something,” she said “we have to move.” This surprised me a bit. I love the house. I love this land I've grown up. “Why are we moving?” I asked surprised. She turned to look at my father who looked back at me. “The dust is to heavy out here, if we don't leave now we're going to go broke” my father said with a sad tone in his voice. I'm so surprised they are really making us leave. I can't believe it! I ran upstairs and started to pack my stuff with tears
The Google definition of the word mom is “one's mother; my mom each gave us a slice of pizza”…….So in my circumstance where the woman whom I consider to be my mom, is not my mother, and additionally came into my life after the point of where I desperately needed someone to get me a slice of pizza, does she not count? In my paper I’m going to discuss my relationship with one of the biggest role models In my life, and although she may be unrelated to me, and I may refer to her to other as my step-mom to others, to me she far exceeds the stupid Google definition to what any mom should be.
My father told me that my mother had a hard life and had to take care both of her sibling after her mother was incapable being she came through her own divorce. I also learn that my mother doesn’t really communicate with her siblings because they don 't get along over simple little things and these disagreement can last for a whole decade. Before I left her, I told her that if I had kids, I wouldn 't teach my kids the same way as you did to me. My life has transformed form to a better adult with a greater maturity of sensitive subjects, taking responsibility over issues, wanting stability in my daily life, enjoying a committed relationship, and a comforting home
But, finally, I landed on the twenty nine of December two thousand and four at 9: pm, after two transits at Johannesburg and Hong-Kong. I do not remember feeling happy to be in Seoul, view of the fact that it was extremely cold. Every part of my body was shaking despite the winter warm clothes Mrs. Park brought, still my body was in a total shock. I never had been in such freeze, and cold weather before. She tried to comfort by asking if I had a considerable journey, how was my family doing on our way to her house in Seoul, Itaewon. Unfortunately I couldn’t respond to her accurately. I felt that my lips were heavy and it was impossible to say a word due to the freeze. However, the only response I could give her was oui, oui, and non, non in