Wilson Tai

LTAM 190C

Spring 2001

P. Skenazy

Wall of Memories

“That which I had in my hands…was the greatest joy of all, but I couldn’t keep it. And he who loses such joy, and loses it for good cause, has no right to happiness”

- Yvain, The Knight of the Lion

After all the years, the walls that form our home have a lot of character. Recently, we filled the dents and painted the walls, but made sure not to cover up the end of the wall on which we have two decades of history marked in pen, pencil, and permanent marker. In the secondary living room, the one without the television, there is a piano against the opposite wall, two sofas, and a coffee table in the center of the room, directly under the skylight. A few feet in between the living room and the kitchen is the celebrated wall, actually a divider with the kitchen. On it, I am at different ages and different heights, with completely different levels of body, mind, and soul. The wall is my vehicle for the exploration of memory, growth, and change. The world continues to turn but written words are forever. My friends, other family members, past girlfriends, people who came in and out of my life, are all marked on the wall. I have to think hard to remember the faces behind a few of the names on the wall. Some of the names invoke special memories; memories that make me want to keep those names on the wall. Other names are nothing but initials or scribbles.

Everyone that sees the wall wants to be a part of it. I’m totally cool with that so I go over to the pencil box by the kitchen telephone and grab whatever I can find. Usually, there’s a broken pencil or a pen out of ink there – strange that I can almost never find a good pen. Without good writing instruments, there are heights, dates, and names marked with crayon, pencils, blue, red, and black pens, and even fat-tipped Sharpies that fill a lot of space. There are marks everywhere, chicken scratched, from four feet to seven feet. As you look to each opposite end on the vertical height scale, there are fewer and fewer marks. Some of the names at the very bottom have smiles drawn next to them or “John Hancock” type signatures to get attention. I don’t blame them; the one’s at the bottom get passed by or forgotten. Right in the middle is where the hot property is. It’s the beachfront property that you can’t get because everyone is in line to get it before the next person. You can’t see a lot of clear signatures, most are layered, either covering or under other marks from other people. Some of the names are clear and match up to a vivid memory, however, some of the names are either illegible or close to it and do not register any memories.

Ryan: 6 feet and 9 inches of exclusive space on the wall - I had to get a chair to mark his name. Peter: Mr. Frat Boy that satisfied all the stereotypes, friends since high school, now a stockbroker on Market Street in San Francisco. Eri: flirty, funky, and a “jumper” – she always needed another guy and couldn’t be alone. Yuki: BMW M3 driving, super cute, three-year-older-than-me-Japanese-girl; I spent a week with her in LA and we shared secrets about her guys and my girls. Irene: I went after her virginity but made a mistake by dating two girls at the same time – I took her and another date (two virgins) on a Valentine’s Cruise of the Bay and went home with neither. Brenda: Initially liked me for my fast and flashy car – I didn’t mind until I learned that she liked other guys for their fast and flashy car. Dominique: My brother’s ex-girlfriend who wore a lot of makeup and once I saw her without it, I understood why. Wellma: our Mexican bi-weekly housekeeper – why is she on the wall? Lynn & Wally: my Caucasian “grandparents” I remember having dinner with so many wonderful weekends in San Francisco – she is the reason why I have such a diverse taste for life and fine foods. Phatchef (no shoes): While everyone else went to college, he went to New York Culinary Institute and is currently the head chef at a plush restaurant in my hometown, Lafayette. Jackie, Julin, Quan, Kriska, Erika, Raven, Eugene, Christine, Veronica, Venessa, and Joe: I have no recollection of who these people are!

Everyone wants to be taller than they really are; I have never had someone line up without trying to squeeze in an extra inch or two by tiptoeing or standing really erect. And sometimes, depending on how sensitive the person is, just to make them feel better, I’ll mark the line above their heads. I might tilt the pen upwards or I might use the top of their hair as the measuring point. If their hair has a lot of volume, then an extra inch can be added. When it came to my mother, I used extra sensitivity to judge her height on the wall.

My mother looks at me and she feels small. “Look mom, you haven’t shrunk.” She is no taller than my upper chest and I must look like a giant from her point of view. At twelve years of age, I surpassed my mother’s height – it says right there on the wall, “Wilson Tai (in big letters) twelve years old (in small letters) 6/3/1991.” I think from that point on it was hard for my mother to follow up on her nagging with consequences. She nagged, instinctively and naturally, like most Chinese mothers, but any further disciplinary action was just not going to happen. My maturity became a central focus to my personal growth. Being as tall as my mother made me big headed – I thought I was a man - I wasn’t a man. But I was always the man of the household. Without a father, I had to be strong because I was the first-born son, the older son, the mature son, the more responsible son, and man-of-the-house son.

Sometimes I wonder how my mother is so strong. Her will and her soul have endured hardships all her life. Growing up in a poor hard-working family and then graduating top honors from Taiwan University is a concept foreign to me. I’ve been spoon fed a lot of luxuries - my mother cannot help her endless generosity – providing is her way of showing love in the way she doesn’t with comfort. She can’t be there all the time because she is a single parent. Sometimes I feel she is always being pushed to the limits from work and family – she has a lot more wrinkles now and more white hair, which she doesn’t hesitate to remind me of constantly. She’s made mistakes and she’s admitted to them – that’s human.

When my father passed away when I was two, family and friends told her that she should move back to Taiwan and raise us there. Instead, she took over the business on her own and raised her sons alone in America. Do you understand the struggle behind that? For that, I owe her everything. It was that undying commitment and self-sacrifice that proves motherly love. She has never asked for anything from her sons and has given them everything. I am amazed that she has done the daily grind for over 31 years; the business is her life and her way of feeding her family. She has been working 10-to-5, 7 days a week, for 31 years; you and I do not know the extent of that. Chinese don’t retire; Chinese are determined for life. Our family has a furniture business with three showrooms, two in Oakland and one in Concord. When I say our family, it means my brother, mother, and I. Both my brother and I go to college – she works while we learn and play – she wouldn’t have it any other way. We manufacture, import, and retail, handmade solid rosewood furniture. It’s all beautiful - my mother handpicks and designs everything herself; the furniture lasts a lifetime, I like that. In Taiwan, she used to paint watercolor and calligraphy as an outlet for creativity. She’s an artist at heart and a lover of life – it shows in her strength even after the death of her husband, my father.

Of course, my mom isn’t always the greatest. I used to hear my mother on the phone speaking to relatives and speaking in Mandarin very loudly. It was as if she was yelling and to be honest, it was annoyingly loud. I asked her once, “Why do you yell?” She simply replied, “That is how I talk in Chinese.” She has two modes – one is her home language, Mandarin Chinese, and the other is her foreign language, English. More specifically, it’s broken English with an accent. My mother attempted to improve her English by attending courses that were intended to help you lose your accent and gain a better knowledge of conversational English – it didn’t help much. When it comes to English, she doesn’t have vocal authority – I notice things in public, sometimes Americans get impatient when they hear my mother talk in her trademark English. That makes me angry – try speaking Chinese you ignorant American! When she speaks in Mandarin, everyone bows down; my mother commands attention and she issues orders like a high-ranking general. My mother is a businesswoman; she isn’t a domestic, passive, typical mother. My mother is anything but typical – she’s superwoman to me.

Because my mother works, I was responsible for providing a role model for my kid brother, Shaun. He is two years younger than me and looks up to me with respect and admiration. I have tried to be wise, generous, brave, faithful, and unable to do evil. I don’t always portray those traits I have always aimed to fulfill – I am only human. He’s been through a lot of shit too. He’s runaway from home, as the youngest member of our family he’s received the least amount of attention, received the most blame for my troubles, and is a target for my mother’s venting frustration – he is an easy scapegoat. It only makes him stronger and he can hold his own whether it be in a near 4.0 GPA at CSU Hayward or in business – he can sell you anything.

When Shaun was walking home from junior high school he was hit by a reckless driver and was in the hospital for 3 months and afterwards, 2 months in a wheelchair. He had stitches across his face, a black eye, and a fractured shoulder with an arm in a sling, and a broken leg in a big white cast. Like the wall in our home, the cast was signed by his friends and also by people that just wanted to put their name on something. He had just stepped out of the bus and was crossing the crosswalk when an impatient driver swerved to the left of the stopped bus, across the double yellow lines, and accelerated to 40 mph. He hit my brother square on and sent him 50 feet through the air. I remember seeing the police bright orange spray paint that marked an “X” at the point of contact and an “X” at the area that my brother fell to the ground. It was startling – even scarier was the car that hit him was what he landed on 50 feet away – through the windshield and denting the hood. I learned about the accident and heard my mother unlike I had ever heard her – touched and fragile. I called the Lafayette police and was nearly in tears, blaming everything on them and their inability to control the traffic on that busy street. The officer on the phone told me that he was the first one on the scene. I wanted to know the name of the driver, I wanted to hunt him down, and I wanted to inflict pain – eye for eye for hurting my family. The police officer wouldn’t give me that information. My father was watching that day because the doctors were in disbelief on how he survived – we were all in disbelief. His classmates signed a big letter and sent gifts to his hospital room. Friends visited him in the hospital in between a growing number of visits from lawyers who had mysteriously found out about the accident. Today, there is nothing but a scar on his shoulder to remind him.

My grandmother also helped my mother get through work and raising her children in the earlier days. I remember from the beginning of time being cared by her – I didn’t want to visit her anymore when I forgot how to speak Chinese. Communication is key, without it, nothing can be expressed or shared. Grandma was physically strong, she used to hand mercy wrestle with me and those rough calloused hands would always win over my smooth and soft hands that had yet to see any work other than playing with toys. She didn’t have any advantage with her size; she was no taller than five feet tall, she was just much stronger. In fact, she’s close to the bottom of the wall. She never returned to my home to add more marks, if she did, we would be charting her shrinking size. As a young child, grandma took my hands in hers and inspected them like they were a roadmap. She followed the wrinkles and lines in my hands and told me my future. She studied them with great attention; I was ridden with impatience because she took a long time reading those lines in my hands. Wisdom, health, and fortune, were all marked in the future for me. Fortunately, my hands reflected nothing but great fortune. It was ironic because she said the identical thing to my kid brother but we had different hands in size and in lines. I still believed every word she said.

Mom tells me that grandma used to carry me on her back on the way home from the shopping market. It’s crazy to think she used to take care of me because the roles were reversed as she aged. This was the grandmother on my father’s side and she was strong in spirit to be able to deal with her son’s passing away just as he was getting his family started and the business established. Her son, my father, passed away in a car accident when I was two years old. I think it was better that way – as opposed to losing him if I had strong emotional memories and connections with him. In fact, the only memories I have are from faded pictures and my mother isn’t anxious to share them with me for reasons I do not know.

Grandma taught me how to open a package of cookies without making a mess. She would instruct me on how to use scissors to open the bag, instead of savage rips. Instead of forks and spoons, she would enforce the use of chopsticks to stay true to my roots. I would always try to sneak a fork in and when I went home, I didn’t used chopsticks. She knew I was using forks and other utensils at home because each time I’d visit her she would have to teach me all over again how to use chopsticks. She’d study how I held the chopsticks as she did my hands, I could tell by the look on her face if I was doing okay or needed work. As she aged, her sight went. The weekly phone calls opening with her robust, “Tai Ming Wha, Yo!” subsided as her hearing went. I loved how she combined the English slang of “hello” with my traditional Chinese name. With the youthful lack of attention, I would try to get off the phone as fast as possible when she called. As years past, the phone calls stopped. I’m afraid to visit her because I know the end is coming – I have already experienced the death of her husband, my grandfather. She is alone. I miss her.

When I think of my mother and grandmother, I feel fortunate to be on the receiving end of such undying love. It reminds me of my ex-girlfriend, Regina. She’s the one girl that my mother approved of and they were close. Regina worked hard to satisfy my mother, my brother, and I. She continues to keep in contact with my mother – she calls on Mother’s Day. Her name on the wall really stands out in my mind even though it is partly covered by others names and takes some effort to find. But if you look in the busy area around 5’7”, there is her name written in the same lettering as she wrote all those love letters. Her signature is in curvy cursive with self-assured graceful strokes; she was graceful and feminine – all those curves symbolized the love within. I didn’t call her my “girl,” I called her my “lady.” Though we were the same age, she was mature and I was too immature to handle that.

It was our first Christmas together. She had told me that I had something special coming as a gift for Christmas. It was a small box; I opened it up and inside was a sterling silver bracelet. Regina excitedly cuddled up next to me and was so ecstatic as she read the engraved lettering: “To Wilson, love forever, Regina.” I looked at her and asked, “What is this, is this all?” I felt like it was a cheap token of affection – I felt like throwing the bracelet at her feet. She was visibly torn, tears started swelling her eyes, and she ran out the door with the bracelet crying. Young, selfish, narcissistic, or immature, there was no reason for that. I was expecting something of high material value but instead I received emotional value that didn’t have a price tag: love. Was I so heartless that I didn’t understand that? Was I childish and ignorant? It was the first time Regina ever told me she loved me. I was scared out of my mind; it was the first time anyone other than my mother told me they loved me.

All communication between Regina and I stopped for a week. Mother asked me where Regina was as it was obvious that my spirit was down. There was a particular pain and a hunger caused first by love and second by the rejection of love. I searched for something to redeem myself. Why did I not like the bracelet, was it the actual bracelet or was it the contents of the engraving? My mother had the instinctive insight and counseled me to call Regina. “My mom and dad both agree with me and think that the gift was entirely appropriate,” was the first thing Regina said on the phone. That was the first thing she said after minutes of silence. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t retort because my mother thought Regina’s gift was appropriate too. The bottom line was that Regina cared about me and I cherished her immensely. Swallowing my pride, I let her know that I loved her and that I wanted to wear the bracelet. The relationship bloomed after that and I wore the bracelet proudly as a friend and lover – perhaps a man more than a boy.

Since coming to UC Santa Cruz, I’ve been single. I can’t help but think I’ve stayed single because of Regina. She’s at UC Los Angeles right now and will be graduating this quarter. Regina and I ended the relationship because of the physical distance between us – her in Westwood, me in Santa Cruz. However, it was my immaturity that led me to give her up – I didn’t want to stay committed thinking that I would have opportunities in Santa Cruz and might err on loyalty. The bracelet is no longer worn and is stored in the box it originally came in. I don’t like looking at the words on the bracelet because they make me wonder if she still loves me. About a year into the relationship, she gave me the watch on my wrist that never fails to remind me of her – that’s why I take it off on dates. Sometimes, I can’t wear it because it weighs a lot…emotionally. Superstition notes that giving a watch, as a gift will mark the end of a relationship in the near future. We fulfilled that superstition.

Regina called this past Mother’s Day. I was half asleep in bed taking an afternoon nap after a Mother’s Day seafood and champagne breakfast – there were 3 mothers at the table: my aunt, my grandmother from my mother’s side, and my mother. Before Regina left for UCLA, she told me, “If we are both single after we graduate, let’s get back together.” That sounded fair to me. Well the time is finally here and Regina is graduating, starting her future career as a wedding planner of all things. On the phone, I was pressed to ask her about her status. “So what’s going on with you and all those guys after you?” After a pause, she replied, “Actually…I have a boyfriend.” Disappointed, I asked, “How long have you been seeing him?” Sounding almost embarrassed, Regina answered, “We are going on 9 months.” Isn’t a school year nine months? She was always into keeping dates and monthly anniversaries. I wonder if she still celebrates them. I know she still cares about me; I know she still thinks of me. She called me on my birthday, June 3^rd, coincidentally while I was writing this paper, and I was pleasantly surprised. We talked it up and about 30 minutes into the conversation, she asked, “do you feel that you’ve changed?” Wasn’t that what she was hoping for? It’s the very thing that I’ve been trying to do the past two years at UCSC. I’ve been trying to change for the better, waiting for the day that Regina comes home. The cliché “you don’t know what you have until you lose it” rings true.

Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking at certain times when I marked my name on the wall. The individual names are united on the wall – it’s the epicenter of memory. Though the signatures and dates on the wall are static, the wall represents growth and change. The growth and evolving experiences take place outside the community of the wall. The uncertainty of change and growth is what life is about.