Aye Aye, Captain

In June 1988, Min took the notorious Chinese GaoKao, also known as the National College Entrance Examination. She fought the heat waves in a classroom packed with fifty other students for nine hours, spanning over three days. She conquered four subject tests: Chinese language, Mathematics, English, and Politics, accompanied by the echoey scream of cicadas. However, she failed to reach the minimum qualifying score for any of the universities she applied to.

As disappointed as Min was, she didn’t give herself time to sulk. After spending an entire day laying in her bed, blasting sentimental Cantonese songs about “girl don’t you cry,” spitting out the lyrics like she was a Hong Kong native, she was ready to take on the world again. Fluent in many Chinese dialects, Min was a witty Shanghainese girl who was slightly spoiled by her parents: she was the first kid in her high school to trade the heavy glasses and dents on the bridge of her nose for a pair of yearly contacts, and her parents sure turned a blind eye to her Diana Ross perm and above-knee miniskirts.

Since adolescence, Min had always loved fashion. She could have indeed been the first girl in Shanghai to cut off half of her regular shirt, so she could show off her tiny waist in the excruciatingly hot summer months. However, in the summer of 1988, Min put on a proper blouse and started working as a waitress at one of the best and most expensive restaurants in Shanghai. Rumors said that the governor was a regular. She met a young cook there named Yang. They soon fell in love. Yang said Min looked like a movie star with her perm and crop tops, and Min called Yang the best-looking cook in the city.

Three years later, Min and Yang got married at the restaurant. They booked one big Lazy Susan that fit over ten dishes, eight bottles of Maotai, and all the family members. Min wore a sundress and Yang put on a nice pair of khakis. There weren’t any professional wedding pictures taken, nor a bouquet thrown, nor a white vile lifted, but they were the happiest couple.

After months of Yang’s nudging, Min finally decided to end her waitressing career and pursue her passion for fashion. She applied to the hippest, most western and successful brand in China at the time, Esprit. She showed up to her job interview with her big perm and flare jeans, and she started her new career as a store associate on the very same day. Min always knew exactly which pair of pants to show to the gentlemen, so they’d happily buy them along with the shirts, and she can always quickly find the perfect purse for the ladies to go with their heels. After a year at the store, Min’s distinct sense of style had people coming in requesting her as a shop assistant. Deservingly, the rookie of the year snatched the store manager position from some older employees. No one had any complaints towards Min. She was the girl that took extra shifts on the weekends whenever others couldn’t; she was the girl who bought five birthday cakes over the year for the coworkers who had to spend the special day working a twelve-hour shift; she was the girl who always came into work with a big smile on her face, even after she just had major c-section surgery.

Seeing the two lines on her pregnancy test, Min was hit by waves of emotions. She was happy, of course, at the thought of becoming a mother, but she was also scared of a demotion from her long future absence from work. As the belly grew bigger, her worries grew heavier.

Min had to take her leave when her legs could barely stand straight to support her body for thirty minutes, let alone a whole day of running across the store, finding the perfect belt to go with the tie. On a rare outing to the park with the company of Yang and her in-laws, Min was asked if she was pregnant with twins. That was the hardest she had laughed in a long time, she thought she’d go into early labor.

“No ma’am,” Min said, “just one big fat baby girl.”

And I was born at the break of dawn on September 12th, 1996. That was the moment Min became my mom, and Yang became my dad.

My mom went back to work with a newly healed c-section scar. She wasn’t going to let anyone take over her store manager position, especially now with another mouth to feed. Did I mention that I was a gigantic baby? A gigantic baby that required extra nutrition and extra love. With a couple more pay raises, my mom became the breadwinner of the household. My dad gracefully accepted his new job as a stay-at-home parent while my mom spent the majority of her days at work. Feeling guilty about her constant absence from her newborn, my mom compensated for it by feeding me with not just name brand baby food, but a lot of it. Therefore, I remained a size bigger than other kids my age for quite a while.

Like most Chinese people growing up in an atheist country, my mom had nowhere to put her faith but into hard work. She worked over the weekends, during national holidays, and even on Chinese New Year: the day that was preordained by our ancestors to spend with family. Year after year, my mom climbed her way up the corporate ladder and seated as the national retail manager of the company. She cut her long, permed hair into a pixie cut, saying that it was low-maintenance and water-saving. However, dad and I knew that she cut it because her hair was getting thinner and more fragile due to all the late nights on the job. She also gave me all of her crop tops and bikinis when I reached a proper age, and my boobs still don’t fill up those bikini tops even today at the age of twenty-three. At the time, my mom kept saying that she was ready to stop holding on to the tail of her youth and embrace professionalism with some sophisticated, neat and modest looks, but yet again, dad and I knew that she couldn’t bear to look at the bulging c-section scar across her lower belly and the stretch marks that never faded.

My mom was a night owl. Like mother, like daughter. Every school night at around ten, eleven-ish, I’d hear the elevator stopping on our floor, and a prolonged squeak of our apartment door as my mom tried to open it slowly. “Is she asleep?” My mom would ask my dad. That’s when I would shove my phone under my pillow and pretend that I was asleep, because I knew, regardless of my dad’s answer, my mom would tiptoe into my room and tuck me in. I’d always pretend to rub my eyes and act like I was just woken up by the living room light. Friday nights were my favorite time of the week. I didn’t have to wake up early the next morning, nor did my mom. Plus, it was the only day out of the week the movie channel played Hollywood movies instead of documentaries about what a great leader Mao Zedong was. Mom and I would rip open a family-sized bag of chips and attentively watch Nicolas Cage kidnapping the President of the United States of America.

One thing my mom was and remains very good at is trusting her gut. In early 2008, before Shanghai’s housing market boom, my mom was quick to invest. My dad had his doubts, but he had more doubts about his own money management skills after losing a fortune in the stock market years prior. The purchase of three cheap apartments at the time changed our lives forever. With her investments, my mom was able to retire early and move our family across the world to Los Angeles, California. My mom said it was fate that we ended up at where we are today, but I think she’s wrong. We ended up in the City of Angels with a pretty house, cute little backyard, and an endless supply of sunlight all because of her.

Once I got to college, I was eager to get a job. This was something my mom did not understand. As an only child, it doesn’t matter how old I get, I’ll forever be twelve years old to my parents, and no twelve-year-old should be busting tables at a restaurant. Even today, my mom still tries to subtly transfer small amounts of money into my bank account and expect me to believe that I get tax refunds four times a year. But little did she know, I worked through two part-time jobs and three internships in the past three and a half years because of my desire to be more like her. My mother is a glorious woman who deserves the great life she is currently living because of her fruitful labor. She is the captain who sailed her family across the sea to a foreign land. She is the fashionista who sighs heavily whenever I come home with a Forever 21 bag. She is the legend who takes three tequila shots and still doesn’t crack up at her own jokes.

She is pure awesomeness.