Part Two
Sun Jianlong claimed he came to cook and take care of me. That part, to some extent, was true. After November, I hadn’t been doing well. Around that time, I had a huge argument with Daiga’s mom. I fought that fight more for Daiga and his sister, Mayin, than for myself. I didn’t really have any personal conflict with his mom, at first I thought it was differences in habits and perceptions between two adult women, but these days I think it was some family dynamic power struggle that I didn’t realize I got myself involved in. Nothing that should be a big deal. What really got to me was realizing how the way she’d treated Daiga and Mayin over the years had caused them both deep psychological scars. Scars that made it hard for Daiga and me to interact normally. He was constantly anxious about little things, and had migraines. Same with his sister.
It’s strange, right? On one hand, she supported my recovery and took care of me. On the other hand, she resisted the changes I brought. Sometimes she tried, but mostly she was scared of how much change I might bring. She worked hard to preserve certain family traditions at home, like specific dishes must be served with specific utensils, or the New Year osechi (written in kanji as 御節料理). She preserved a sense of ritual in her own way, carrying on family customs and culture. I respected her choices. I also understood her desire for me to adapt. Whenever she asked for something and gave a reasonable explanation, I tried to understand. If I couldn’t meet her expectations, I would explain.
I always thought, even though our communication styles were different, we didn’t have a problem conveying information or working together. Perhaps that was just wishful thinking, but I really thought we had something different from the other in-laws or just friends with an age gap. Even though I’m in a romantic relationship with Daiga, she never treated me the way she treats her son. And that’s actually interesting. When she interacts with me, we’re like equals, peers. She would reply to me, engage with my questions, not just wait for me to initiate. But when it comes to her son, she’s authoritarian, oppressive, aggressive.
For a long time I didn’t fully understand this because we’d use English when talking to each other, and Japanese among ourselves. It felt like we were on different channels. Me and Daiga’s mom on the English channel, them on a Japanese one. But the difference wasn’t just language. It was tone, expression, what could and couldn’t be said, what behaviors were accepted or not.
In English, she was softer, more polite, and explanatory. In Japanese, the conversations were short, sharp, sometimes joyful, sometimes full of complaints, sometimes mocking. It’s far more emotionally complex. Before marriage, everything felt measured, appropriate. After marriage, it was different.
Part Three
When I told my mom I had depression and bipolar disorder, her first reaction was: You’re lying! Show me your medical records. I want evidence. I had just barely come out of a suicidal episode. I had no energy to explain. Not again. I’d already tried explaining to her countless times before. She never listened.
I’ve been depressed since I was very young. The first time I thought about suicide, I wasn’t even six, it was a strange experience for me. I felt intense anger and resentment. I wanted to jump off the 4th floor. I remember carefully thinking through whether I would actually die. I concluded that if I didn’t die, it would hurt too much. So I gave up. It was triggered by something very small. My mom was assigned with the task of taking a bunch of us kids to the restaurant across the street to meet up with my dad and his coworkers. Thinking back, my mom was and still is nervous whenever my dad asks her to help with something, since he’s hard to please and meticulous, always blaming both of us for things he didn’t mention or not following his exact instructions.
That day, she needed us to hold hands, so she could cross the street with all of us. She was stressed and anxious, and as always, she took it out on me. I said I didn’t want to hold her hand anymore. She said, then go home by yourself. I did. I went home and felt an overwhelming urge for self-destruction. In reality, it wasn’t a big deal. But my mom always made me feel like I came after everyone else. So now, even when minor things happen, my emotions escalate fast. It’s an irrational, automatic process. She always knew how to piss me off with minimal effort.
It’s like she was obsessed with her “status” in the family. She used to tell me, Once you turn 18, I’ll kick you out. You’ll have to fend for yourself. And, The house is under my and your father’s name, not yours. This is not your home. We can kick you out anytime. That gave me deep insecurity and a very crude concept of “home.” Home always felt like chaos, anxiety, emotional outbursts, unpredictability, irrationality, violence. That word never gave me any comfort. However, I do have good memories of places outside of home, school, libraries, theaters. I was always happier and more relaxed outside my actual home.
Because of her obsession with her “status” in the family and the constant reminders that she had all the rights, and I only had obligations, and all this stuff about who should obey whom which I didn’t even care about or fully understand, I started thinking more and more about personal freedom and rights. It felt like she was trying to teach me what politics is. This is politics, she seemed to say. I can bully you without consequence, and you better listen. I don’t know if she has some kind of emotional disorder. It’s hard to imagine myself treating my kids like that. But in her eyes, this was reasonable. Normal.
Part Four
This senior-junior hierarchy between East Asian women often feels more rigid than that among men. Among men, mutual appreciation and fair competition seem more common. In my view, that’s because men are the dominant group, supporting each other is supporting themselves. Some studies suggest there’s a link between “brotherhood” and sexual orientation: the more a man cares about how other men perceive him, the more likely he is to be open to same-sex relationships (don’t quote me on this). But for women, the dynamics are not the same. In my mother-in-law’s house, I strongly felt this sense of being “ordered around.” It felt like the moment I got married, I became the family’s obedient little in-law in her eyes. I had and have no such intention.
In one week, so many problems came up. Her younger son let his cat bully Moira, and when Moira fought back, he came to announce to Daiga in Japanese the decision he’s made of cutting Moira’s nails. I was sitting there, no questions asked, no communication with me. It’s interesting isn’t it? It’s my cat, but he asked Daiga, not me.
I knew that was just an excuse to punish her, or me, or Daiga. I said no. He said, Most cats can get their nails trimmed, implying why not yours?I explained, she’s sensitive about it, and we don’t mind. You mind, and that’s your problem. Don’t touch her. Don’t let your cat bother her. End of story. Before that, the younger son had told us we could borrow his car. But when we didn’t fill the gas for a day, instead of talking to us directly, he told his mother who told Daiga, You have no common sense.
Daiga snapped. I went cold. I said: don’t borrow his car anymore. Let’s rent one. Then the family said, But you can use his car…I really don’t get it. Why do we have to operate within their control, even when they can’t give us the support we need? Why are we not allowed to solve problems ourselves using our own resources? Just to prove their authority?
