The Space Between

Like my parents, I am an immigrant to this country. Born on the other side of the world (if you dig a hole…), I moved to the States when I was about 5 years old. Given that my parents were already in their thirties at the time of our move, my growing up in the EEUU has put a lot of cultural space between us. Sometimes, this distance is frustrating, but at other times, it is both perplexing and endearing.

An example of this distance (mostly of the latter persuasion) was demonstrated last night. I decided to “take a nap” at about 11:00 p.m. and was basically contorted in a strange position on the extreme end of a bed. To those of you accustomed to my college antics, this description should elicit several disquieting mental images… Anyhow, my mom came in, turned the light off, and was about to leave when she stopped in her tracks. She saw something on my left arm. Quickly, she realized what it was: a tattoo.

Now this just wasn’t any tattoo. I had just gotten it earlier that day, without her knowledge, while I was out with two other friends. In an act of solidarity and/or boredom, we all ended up deciding to express our friendship through glorious excess and personal effacement. Given that both my mom and I were a bit groggy -- I have a feeling that we both had just stirred from restless slumber – I was pretty confused when my mom asked me, “Is that painted or etched onto your arm?” It took me about two seconds to realize that she was talking about my rad new tat, which I will now reproduce in its full glory here:

Tall, yellow, and lanky – just like me. This is precisely why I had picked this tattoo up at Putt Putt for 25 tickets, fresh from the Skeeball machine.

In retrospect, I can now attribute about 70% of this misunderstanding to a combination of bad lighting and mutual grogginess. However, at the time, I immediately reacted with dismay that my mom actually thought that I would have a chibi giraffe, of all things, needled onto my arm. “Mommmm,” I whined, “Who do you think I am?!” I mean, I may be really friggin’ weird, but even I have my boundaries. I’d rather die than have any Lisa Frankian murals permanently installed onto my person.

My mom replied that American kids are “unpredictable” and that they often do rash things without first consulting their parents. This is perhaps true in some cases and does reflect a difference between Chinese and American cultures. However, even at this stage in my life, I would at least tell my parents that I was getting a tattoo. I honestly hope that my mom doesn't think that I am such a loose cannon (stop laughing, Slaughter) that I would not include them in important life decisions.

This episode shows that I need to do a better job of communicating with my parents. A cultural space does exist in between us, and I need to do my best to minimize that distance. In addition, we need to have a couple of discussions on aesthetics. A chibi giraffe?!?!... Gah!