My mother was no tiger mom –
couldn’t care less that I’d failed
maths in third grade, shrugged
when I declared I was quitting
piano at the age of seven. Instead,
she’d rage about moral behavior,
believed in kneeling as a cure
for ailments such as disrespect.
Once, I walked into a lift without
letting the adults enter before me,
the damage already done even as
I flattened myself against the wall,
said sorry and held the door open
from the inside – the wrong side.
That night, I knelt and whispered
sorry with my knees, cried to show
remorse, narrowly escaped a beating.
She was hard so the world could be
soft. I don’t want you to be hit by anyone
else. On days when my table manners or
posture irked her, she would call me baak
ci: Cantonese for as stupid as a blank page.
There were other names for the good days:
treasure shell, heart-liver, pickled carrots.