after a week long tour between areas in tokyo to kyoto, my parents ended their trip with a weekend visit to my little island home. as mountains separate anything worth seeing here, after a weekend of driving all over the place, i'm thoroughly exhausted of being a motorist.
i think that being our parents, we make a lot of assumptions about them.... especially me regarding mine, as i'm not used to seeing them handle new situations. in fact, i'm used to them solely dealing with the home and matters pertaining to it.
this is why i figured, them going to a new country? with all the nitpicky things that japanese people do? oh, they're in for some culture shock.
surprisingly, my parents were pretty open-minded about trying new things. for example, i got a call one night from my mom while they were in a hot springs town (one of the most famous in the country). she told me how the previous night, some of the people on their tour tried out the hot springs, but she was too shy to get naked in front of other people. after telling her how it's not that big of a deal, and that when in rome, do as romans do. so that night, she ended up trying the public bath, and she actually enjoyed it. she claims it was nice and relaxing.
when they first arrived, what i feared would happen happened: issues with ordering food. here you have me, the japan inhabitant; my dad, the hearty meat eater and relatively open-minded; and my mom, the buddhist vegetarian with all types of food banned from her diet. now place us in a tiny restaurant overlooking the sea, with a menu only in japanese with no pictures, and me trying to relay back and forth between my parents what's on the menu, and asking the waitress what to leave out of the food they serve my mom. it was kind of an issue, and became and even bigger issue when we went to the best restaurant on the island their first night. after all that hassle, we figured that cooking ourselves would be easiest, so we did that instead the rest of their time here.
after just their first day here, i realized something about them that never occurred to me: they are really westernized. when i'm at home, they are pretty traditional chinese, which is contrasted easily by the western culture outside my home that i grew up in. but after seeing them in japan, i realize how much they are used to western luxuries like beds, chairs, keeping your shoes on, and warm water at all sinks. just seeing how they kept asking me, "why dont you ~~?" i realized how much they are used to their own lifestyle, and they tended to assume that certain luxuries were available, when in truth, the japanese norm is way different.
by far, my most surprisingly enjoyable moment was when i took them to the beach. god knows how long it's been since my mom has been to a real beach. the moment she smelled the salt in the air, she told me about her childhood memories of swimming at the beach with all her siblings and father. it was adorable when she started combing the beach with a random stick to find seashells buried beneath the sand, all with the intention of putting the shells in my fish tank at home.
there was even a moment when aaron came over for mom-cooked food one night, and my dad went into his story-telling mode (the kind that's about family history -- those are my favorites. lectures about how my pictures suck are the kind of storytelling i can't stand). as usual, entertaining. i miss those storytimes that i can only really get at home.
all in all, i'm very happy they came. it's a lonnng way, especially for them going home (they were in transit for 19 hours on the way back home.... they started in tsushima, which means transfers at fukuoka and narita before finally heading back to SF). granted, it was all paid for by my brother, but the fact that extensive traveling is hard on the body, especially at their age, made it especially impressive that they made the trip out here.
i know i tend to get short with them and really sarcastic, but i hope they know that i was very happy they were here. i guess everyone has their own way of showing affection for their parents. i feel like traditional asian families are a little more distanced emotionally than american-bred families (we dont talk about boyfriends, relationships, "love" or mushy stuff like that), but i think that at the end of the day, both sides have a mutual understanding of the other.
i know this sounds cocky, but i think after seeing my home and the insular lifestyle that i lead, they are proud that i've made it this far and this long. for the first time, i could hear a slight ring of pride in my mom's voice when she introduced herself as my mother. even though i've barely seen them in the last 2 years, i dont think they've completely forgotten or given up on me (even though both of them kept calling me by my sister's name.... my mom even called me my brother's name once...*sigh*). and despite my long absence from home, i was glad to see they were in good health, and the same as ever.
bottom line, i love my parents.... though i can never actually say that to their faces, cuz that's just too mushy for us f(^_^;;)
1 comment:
my mom calls me by my brother's name all the time! *grumble, grumble*
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