Things My Mother Taught Me

The most important thing I remember from when I was very little was not to lie. My mother told me that she always knew when I was lying and she would look deeply and seriously into my eyes, and demand to be told the truth. Of course, I believed her, such was her conviction when she told me that she always, always knew when I was lying. At first, I would tremble and feel quite terrified that I might have been naughty. Being naughty was quite a crime. But eventually I reasoned (although dogged by uncertainty) that if she had to prolong our inquisition, that maybe she didn’t know after all. In any case, by then I’d decided to take the path of least resistance and determined to always tell the truth. It tugs at me sometimes even now, this need to unburden the whole truth, when clearly the whole truth is seldom required in the adult world.  

The other thing that strikes me now as slightly odd, especially as I look pretty Oriental, is her insistence when we were small that we were black. We were told that we had to “Try hard. Work harder! Work harder than everyone else – because you are black. And people will think you are lazy and stupid.” I had the idea that black people had a pretty rough time of it back in the 60s, and then 70s, and 80s simply because of their skin colour. We also had to scrub ourselves thoroughly in the bath so that ‘they’ wouldn’t be able to say black people smelt, which just seemed absurd to me, because I knew that many of my classmates certainly were not made, like us, to bathe nightly. The idea that Black could be spelt with a capital B did not reach my consciousness for quite some time, and by then I’d absorbed the notion that although I looked Chinese, we were indeed Black, though maybe with a small ‘b’? Perhaps these unresolved issues are why lately I’ve been trying to explore what China means to me. I am, after all, three quarters Chinese. 

My mother being a Jamaican Chinese had a Jamaican accent, which my best friend pointed out one time, and which of course, I’d never noticed all the while growing up. We lived in two worlds. At home there was always rice to eat, and Chinese (I mean really, completely Chinese) people always visiting, all related to us in some way. They’d followed us out to North Wales and now lived in neighbouring towns, or down the road, like my Uncle Chung and Aunt. And at school, there was English food and potatoes – even occasionally, chips! So, the thing I remember that my mother always said about food, was “finish your plate!” We were not allowed to leave the table if there was anything more than a few crumbs left on our plates. Consequently, I became a fine example of Nurture over Nature. Instead of having a balanced approach to food, even perhaps, a healthy disinterest in it, I became like my lunar namesake, a pig. A greedy little pig. (That’s how we used to talk to each other when fighting over sweets and crisps, not sensible food).

The most important message that my mother has handed down to me, however, is how to be generous towards others. She will do anything for any one of her four children, and for my father’s Chinese relatives. My mother will pick me up or run me down to the station, will carry my case, will cook for me; will babysit – and do the ironing, or clean the bathroom while we are out; will give me her earrings if I say I like them, will drive me anywhere and she’s 82, and she’s always been like that, always there for me, and for all of us. When I was a child, she would often be off translating for one or other of them, lubricating the friction of life in a foreign country taking them to doctors, hospitals, accountants, bank managers and so on and so forth. This, despite her extreme shyness. The only person she was not afraid of, at all, was my father who adored her. And us of course, her children. She was even afraid of the market stall holder who had sold her a tea set with chipped items which she couldn’t return because she would have had to make a complaint on her own behalf.  

She told me once that she worried about being a good mother because she felt she’d never had a mother. (Hers had died at the age of 29, when she was three years old). She did a lot of shouting when we were young and wild. We all did, especially the two siblings in-between the oldest, me, and the youngest, my very tender little sister who would cry if one of us was upset. Well, we all love her, so yes, mum, you did do a good job.

©️ Written by Suyin Chan 陈素茵