Lunchbox

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when suddenly a video called The Lunchbox Moment popped up on my screen. Curious, I clicked, and what quickly ensued was my deluge of tears. Stories of Asian Americans who were bullied for their homemade lunches sent me down memory lane, recalling my own painful memories of being teased for bringing my favorite home-cooked meal, zongzi, to school. As I watched the Asian Americans in the video express their love and gratitude for their parents, I desperately wished I could tell my mother how much I love her and how thankful I am for her. But I’ll never be able to do that. My mother passed away when I was 20. Overwhelmed with emotion, all I could do was sit down and write “Lunchbox.”

At 20, I never had the chance to express to my mom how I feel today, because I didn’t feel that way back then. For all my life up until my 20’s, I hated being Taiwanese American. I hated being teased at school for bringing stinky lunches, and I hated spending Saturday mornings in Chinese school. I hated being different. I wanted to be “normal.” I wished I had blonde hair and blue eyes like the popular girls so that boys would like me. All I wanted was to fit in, but no matter how much I tried, my eyes, skin, and weird ways set me apart from everyone else.

So I rejected that part of myself. I couldn’t see what was good about being Asian. And because the most Asian part of my life was my mother, I pushed her away. I took her for granted.

She wasn’t the “American” outwardly loving mom on the Disney shows. Her ways were foreign. Coming from a poor upbringing in Taiwan, she didn’t understand the importance of “being there for your child.” To her, having a roof over your head and meals to eat were all you needed, and a greater expression of love than any American expression of love. She was physically and emotionally absent, and she could barely speak English. She didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand her, culturally and sometimes literally.

At the time, I could only see my mother’s shortcomings. Now I see she loved me the best she could given where she came from and what she went through in her own life. She passed on her love to me in different ways, non-“American” ways…her ways. And one of those ways was through the lunches she cooked for me.

Lunchbox is a love letter to my mother, and a catharsis for anyone who has experienced loss, regret, and being the “other.”

Mom, for all your strengths and imperfections, I love you. Thank you.