Category: Chinese Customs

An Envelope of Appropriation (#385)

No white woman appropriated the Chinese custom of giving lucky money (“lai see” in my husband’s Cantonese-speaking family) as fast as I did when I married Andy. All my debutante mother’s admonitions against giving money as a gift? Gone the second I realized that a pretty red envelope with gold designs was the perfect way to class up cash.

Cash is much more practical than gift cards. You can spend cash on anything, or save it. But gift cards? There’s NO WAY you ever spend the exact amount on the gift card. Corporations profit from expired cards, damaged cards, unredeemed balances, and sometimes fees. Starbucks, for example, gets about 10% of its revenue from unredeemed cards (from everyone except my husband and Coffee Kate). Stick it to corporate overlords and give cash instead!

I have countless nieces and nephews (thanks to over a dozen siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, ex-step-siblings from various parental units’ divorces and marriages) who get lucky money on their birthdays. Our son Dalton has lobbied for cash gifts since he learned what money was (age 3). Dalton’s friends and coaches, even the non-Asian ones, learned to look forward to seeing red when they open a greeting card.

I buy my red envelopes in bulk. Yes, I know that most actual Chinese moms, like my MIL Sunny, get them for free from the bank when withdrawing cash for Lunar New Year or weddings or birthdays (stamped with the bank’s logo, of course, BUT IN GOLD). Back when Andy and I got married, however, our bank didn’t have red envelopes. I bought a variety of designs online: the nieces on the swim team got fish, the nephew who demanded orange juice got oranges, and the nephew who loved pink got red and pink peonies. I even splurged on some bigger, more rigid envelopes for weddings (the better to keep shiny new bills crisp and unbent).

While red envelopes haven’t gone mainstream in California (yet), there’s a Hawaiian custom that has: graduation leis. I’d never seen a graduation lei on the East Coast, but when I got my MFA in Los Angeles, flower leis were everywhere. Since then, high school graduations have morphed into a lei arms race in California. There are real flower leis, fake flower leis, candy leis, money leis, and even Happy Meal leis.

I’ve been at graduations where the leis are piled so high all you can see are the graduate’s eyes. Not one to miss out on the fun, I created a lucky money lei by braiding red yarn and gold ribbon, punching holes in red envelopes (with cashed tucked inside), and then attaching them to the lei with artificial daisies. (Then I warn the recipients to guard that lei with their life.)

SoCal high school graduation leis (mine has the red envelopes with flowers in the center)

When Andy’s nephew graduated, I had his lei all planned out: a kukui nut lei (to acknowledge his family’s history in Hawaii) with lucky money attached by red and gold ribbons. I sent Andy a reminder to leave work early and pick up cash on the way home. Lucky money is, ideally, the largest denomination of bills possible. As my husband is notoriously frugal, I texted him specifics: “I have 3 red envelopes on his lei, and, YES, each should be no less than a fifty!”

Andy brought home a bunch of crumpled twenties.

The ancestors wept.

The white wife insisted on stopping at an ATM that would let her choose hundreds. She may have also berated him the whole way there: “What is wrong with you? I’m not even Chinese and I know anything less than a hundred is shameful!”

Andy’s response was a shrug and, “It’s not like I got cash when I was growing up.”

“But when your mom gives Dalton lucky money, it’s always new, crisp hundred-dollar bills!”

“Crumpled twenties spend the same,” was all Andy said.

Until I returned from the ATM with a pile of Benjamin Franklins.

“How many hundreds are you giving him?!” he huffed, accelerating out of the parking lot with significantly more speed than necessary.

“You had your chance to get him fifties and you blew it.”

“But it’s only high school! And he’s got two younger siblings. You’re setting an expensive precedent.”

“Listen, Scrooge, I’m not giving him all of them. I had to get extra bills in case the ATM gave me old or ugly ones,” I explained. “See? This one is folded up in the corner. I can’t use that. And this one is creased! Only pristine bills make the cut.”

Andy remained horrified over the amount of lucky money in that lei.

Same as my southern ancestors, I expect.

But I like to think the Chinese ancestors were as pleased as our nephew.

Me assembling the #1Wong Nephew’s lei on the freeway.

 

Lunar New Year & Stuff (#382)

Gung hei fat choi!

For those unfamiliar, it’s New Year’s Day. At least in most of Asia. And since the western new year started off so badly, what with fires and the inauguration of nazis and shit, we’re gonna hope the Asian New Year starts a little better. (Maybe with a plan for actual resistance, Democratic Party?) At least this week we’ve had rain and clear air.

But back to Lunar New Year (which we use in SoCal because it’s more inclusive than “Chinese New Year”). Since my Chinese American husband didn’t grow up celebrating many holidays, I only recently learned that the traditional Cantonese New Year greeting  of “Gung hei fat choi” translates as “Hope you get rich.” I discovered this via Ronny Chieng’s hilarious stand up special, which I promptly showed to Andy. Andy laughed until he snorted and said, “Can confirm.”

The cultural emphasis on money is probably one of the reasons why my husband is so focused on saving money. He made coupons a huge part of my life. He spends hours making sure we have the best deals on the internet, cell phones, streaming services…and always get free new iPhones with them.

There are only two things Andy hoards: information and money. Everything else? Purge! He’s constantly trying to get rid of stuff in our garage. After our first two cats died, he tossed all their stuff. Then he threw out storage containers that had curtains from our last, bigger house.

Once we got Boss Cat, I had to buy new scratching posts, litterboxes, bowls, etc. When Andy moaned over the cost, I reminded him that it was his fault. And when Boss Cat promptly shredded some curtains and I discovered Andy had purged the old ones, I pointedly said, “Oh, too bad I have to buy more! They’ve gotten so much more expensive.”

I said that frequently.

After we lost our dogs Woofie and Fey to various cancers, Andy carefully boxed up their bowls, toys, leashes, and collars. He even sacrificed precious garage space for their bagged-up beds. Months later, we had all the amenities ready for our new dog Tankie. Tankie loved his beds and dog-proof soccer ball; Andy loved the lack of a canine cash outlay.

Our son Dalton, unfortunately, takes after both of us. He likes money AND stuff—especially stuffed animals. He refuses to donate any of them, despite being a teenager.

Some of the lesser stuffies relegated to the garage

Much to Andy’s dismay, the garage had to make room for a storage container of stuffies once Dalton started playing the tuba in middle school (the stuffie army AND the tuba could not all fit in the kid’s bedroom.)

Then Dalton got a surfboard. Andy quickly figured out how to secure it in the rafters of the garage.

Dalton recently spent his Christmas/lucky money from Andy’s mom on a snowboard.  This put Andy in a quandry: we will ultimately save money by not having to rent snowboarding equipment, but now there is more unpurgeable stuff in the garage.

Andy is currently eyeing Dalton’s tub of stuffies speculatively.

I’m not entirely certain that Dalton’s stuffed snake* is going to make it through the Year of the Snake.

And with the fascists in the White House?

I’m not exactly sanguine about the rest of us, either.

*Dalton also has a stuffed tarantula and Komodo dragon, though stuffed tigers dominate.

Take a Bao (#376)

Today is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. I should probably be writing about mooncakes, which are traditionally gifted during this week. But let’s face it–mooncakes just aren’t that tasty.  You know what Chinese food is tasty? Dim sum.

At dim sum, where servers push around carts of food, the fried sesame balls known as jian dui are my personal favorite. Andy, Dalton, and even my Lawyer Sis all prefer nai wong bao.

Nai wong bao is also known as a pineapple bun, although no restaurant actually puts pineapple in them. (Except for this one chain called Lunasia, which serves the closest dim sum to us but which Andy has deemed “a travesty.”) White people nicknamed nai wong bao “pineapple buns” because of the roughly hexagonal scale pattern cut into the dough and because nai wong bao is “so hard” to say (especially compared to words like “onomatopoeia” and “Worcestershire”).

Inside the soft bun (bao) with a cookie like topping is yellow (wong) steamed milk (nai) custard.

Nai wong bao is the reason our family is at the dim sum restaurants before the doors open. I don’t think I’ve even been to a place where they didn’t run out of nai wong bao…except for Lunasia, of course. Dalton alone can eat three of them AFTER stuffing his face with three entire orders of har gow (shrimp dumplings).

I’m not sure why there’s never enough nai wong bao. You’d think restaurants would make more of them, especially when the ingredients are simple and inexpensive, especially compared to har gow. Maybe it’s the proofing time? Or the space they take when proofing?

Maybe it’s all a ploy to get customers in early.

Andy was recently in Hawaii, visiting his mom. But Andy and his mom, unlike his East Coast wife, do not always have their eyes on the clock. They went to dim sum almost daily, but not when the doors opened. And each time, the nai wong bao was all gone.

Sad.

By the time Andy got back to LA, he had decided he would make his own damned nai wong bao. He consulted his bread baking book and YouTube. Then he got to work:

Nai wong bao prior to baking

They turned out pretty well.

The finish nai wong bao cooling

I posted pictures on Instagram. Midwest Mark immediately demanded the recipe. Betsy of Motherhood and Martial Arts mocked Mark, rolling her emoji eyes and implying he was dreaming if he thought he could actually make them. Mark then insisted that the gauntlet had been thrown and called for a “Blogger Bakeoff.” He’s been hounding me for the recipe on his blog and on Instagram.

I suspect Mark’s envy of our neighborhood cooking contest is the driving force behind his desire to show off for a bakeoff.

Betsy is having none of this. She has done entire posts about how baking is her Waterloo and refuses to pick up Mark’s gauntlet.

But here’s the recipe Andy used, should any of you choose to accept it!

I look forward to hearing about Mark’s adventures in the kitchen.

I Heart Competition (#335)

In BC times (“Before Child”), my Chinese American husband never missed a gift-giving occasion. Flowers were delivered on my birthday, or sometimes, “just because.” There were platinum earrings to match my engagement ring at Christmas. An emerald necklace was mine on Valentine’s Day.

It took me a while to realize part of Andy’s motivation was to overshadow—and in some cases replace outright— all gifts from previous boyfriends.

In AD times (“After Dalton”), Andy’s gift-giving prowess deserted him. One year he completely spaced on stuffing my stocking (a huge family tradition) or giving me any Christmas presents. Since that was the first year we didn’t spend Christmas with my family, that meant I had nothing to open on Christmas morning.

Our son actually stopped stuffing his face with gummy worms, looked over his giant wall of toys/crumpled wrapping paper, and said, “Mommy, you must have done something terrible.” Continue reading I Heart Competition (#335)

Celebration Mash-Up (#316)

Holidays were huge in my white family. We wore green, pinched each other anyway, and listened to the Irish Rovers on St. Patrick’s Day (despite being Protestant or atheists). Small gifts appeared on Valentine’s Day morning. There were Easter egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. Our birthdays began with presents and towers of doughnuts. Christmas magic (and excesses) went on for days.

Holidays were not big in my Chinese-American husband’s family. Growing up, he got a red envelope with cash, usually from his Popo, on Chinese New Year.

That was it.

Even though some Wong family members were very earnest Christians, there were neither Easter baskets nor Christmas stockings. Continue reading Celebration Mash-Up (#316)

Gifting East: Christmas Edition (#311)

Shopping for anyone from a different culture is tricky.

Shopping for your in-laws is tough.

Shopping for your Chinese-American in-laws?

You’re fucked worse than The Martian. Continue reading Gifting East: Christmas Edition (#311)

Cousins: East & West Edition (#301)

When I was a kid in the Dark Ages, we wrote letters instead of texts. My first pen pal was my cousin in Florida. She was a decade older than me, but she was kind enough to write back and not point out all my spelling mistakes. In third grade, I was a flower girl at her wedding. It was the first time I ever met her.

I wanted my son to have a closer relationship with his cousins—even though we were an entire continent away from them. Whenever my siblings gathered for weddings, holidays, or birthdays, we flew across the country to join them.

Though we used miles whenever possible, my frugal Chinese-American husband complained about the cost, or about how it wasn’t a “real vacation” if we were visiting family. Continue reading Cousins: East & West Edition (#301)

Failing (#294)

My Chinese-American father-in-law harangued me weekly until I got pregnant. He believed my sole purpose in life, as wife to the Number One Son, was to bear him a grandson.

Once Baby D was born, Jay’s health deteriorated. Physical ailments led to mental issues. By the time Baby D was four, Jay was in a wheelchair and not always lucid.

As if he had only been holding on to complete his purpose in life—a grandson. Continue reading Failing (#294)

Belated Chinese New Year (#275)

My husband is Chinese-American.

I’m so white looking, I make a point of assuring any new neighbors of color that I did not vote for Trump.

Our son took after me.

Occasionally, an Asian-American woman would ask me if Baby D’s father was Asian, but no one ever appeared to be surprised that I was his mom.

It was different for my husband. He took Baby D to the grocery store when Baby D was about 2. An old white man got in Andy’s face and asked, “Is that your son?”

Andy said, “Yes.”

The old white man snorted and said, “He don’t look a thing like his daddy!”

Andy replied, “That’s because his white mama traded up races.” Continue reading Belated Chinese New Year (#275)