the tragedy of asian parenting

the extracurriculars i hated

i grew up taking piano, dance, chinese, writing, swim, speech, kung fu classes. many of the typical extracurriculars every asian kid does.

but i hated them.

mom never made a point to explain why these classes were important or how they related to getting good grades in school so i just could not get myself to care.

every week i'd whine and complain. lock myself in my room. pin myself to the ground as my mom dragged me by the legs to get me to go to chinese classes she had already paid for.

"mom i don't even use chinese!!!"

"this is america! we don't speak in chinese here"

"see?? dad agrees with me"

in class i'd fall asleep. draw on my textbooks to pass time. purposely perform badly so my mom would give up on sending me to them.

college applications rolled around. i stopped going to extracurricular classes. i gave up music. gave up sports. forgot chinese words. gave it all up.

gave it up for college. for what i thought was success. for a job. for a career.

all the time my mom spent sending me to the classes seemed to bite the dust.

until recently.

these past few months i started paying out of pocket for music and writing classes. classes i long despised growing up.

i started learning chinese again.

it wasn't until starting these classes again in college that i realized what creative footing my mom had given me. classes i thought were pointless at the time. classes where i didn't have to get an A or be the best to create and work on something that i love.

so many asian kids like me have the creative energy in them because of mom.

so many of us have the potential not to throw it all away.

sometimes i wish my mom sent me to theatre classes instead. brought me to disney world. showed me what it was like to combine the worlds of dance, music, arts, culture, writing. showed me the power of knowing and doing it all. showed me the magic of creating work of my own. did a better job connecting the dots. didn't just send me to the classes out of nowhere.

but i know that i probably wouldn't have cared anyway.

i'm grateful to have been forced to take the classes. even when my gestures screamed how much i hated them, i'm glad my mom made me go.

thank you mom.