For the past couple of months or so, my mom has been nagging me to buy her a computer – when my parents split, my dad moved out of the house and got a new laptop and DSL service, leaving my mother with a old computer running Windows 2000, a hand-me-down keyboard and one of those fucked up boxy CRT monitors that you only see when television news crews do stories on public libraries and elementary schools. (Well, actually, my dad got a new laptop and new DSL service and bought a new condo and a new SUV. But that’s not the focus of this blog post.)

Mom: I want a new computer. With a big monitor. BIG MONITOR.
Ernie: What are you going to use the computer for, mom?
Mom: I want to check my e-mail.

I know full well that buying a new computer and Internet service for my mother is a lose-lose situation: if my mother doesn’t use the computer at all, I essentially have bought her a very expensive paperweight. But if my mother learns to use the Internet too well, my mother suddenly has access to everything I’ve ever published over the World Wide Web. EVERYTHING. Thankfully, “the future” has let us down on many things – Chinese-to-English machine translation being one of them – so I push on with my plan to purchase my mother an early Christmas present: an iMac.

A $1,600 dollar, 20-inch iMac.

The iMac isn’t so much a computer as it is a big shiny white version of modern technology; a computer that was so different from the previous six year old desktop computer that it would be a symbol that her technically adept son does care about her, even through consumerist means. And it has a big monitor. I could just walk into the Apple store, buy a computer, set it up for her with a dial-up service, and that would be that, right?

Wrong.

1) Buying the computer is easy enough. The nice geek in the Apple shirt swipes your credit card, goes to the stock room and hands you a thirty pound box. You then carry the thirty pound box half a mile to the parking garage, then an additional mile to the other parking garage when you realize that your mother has guided you to the wrong parking garage. (OPEN NOTE TO VALLEY FAIR MALL, SAN JOSE CA: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE TWO MACY’S ON OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE MALL? SERIOUSLY, FIND YOUR MALL DESIGNER AND SHAKE HIM FOR ME. <3, ERNIE)

2) Purchasing dial-up Internet service is surprisingly difficult nowadays, especially when you're sitting in a house that doesn't have Internet service, and your mom is looking over your shoulder baffled as to why she can't get her e-mail, while the giant-monitor computer is plainly in front of her. Gone are the days of AOL CDs, and the one time I wanted a desktop icon to install dial-up Internet service for my mom, there was none. I end up being up-sold at a local Best Buy and end up buying a DSL Modem for my mother. DSL service, which takes up to four days for the telephone company to install. Which means I have to come back to my mother's house again in a week.

3) Once the DSL finally works, I sit my mother down, set the mouse pointer and font sizes annoyingly large, and load up Safari. My mother is finally ready to drive on the Information Superhighway, and god knows that she's going to be a crazy old Asian lady about it and drive hella slow and piss everyone off.

Ernie: And here you go. Look, it even has Yahoo! Taiwan on the front page! You don’t even have to type anything.
Mom: I don’t want Yahoo!. I want the one with the butterflies.

“The one with the butterflies,” of course, is MSN.com, the service she had when my parents were on dial-up.

Ernie: But Mom, I work for Yahoo!. You know that, right? That I work for Yahoo!? See that link to your left? Mom, I WORKED ON THAT.
Mom: Yes, I know. But the butterflies, they are so colorful!
Ernie: The site is in English. MSN Taiwan doesn’t even look right on Safari with big fonts. Are you going to be using the page at all?
Mom: Change it to the butterflies!
Ernie: …

Ernie: Okay, we’re ready to set up your e-mail. What’s your e-mail address?
Mom: … I don’t have an e-mail address.
Ernie: I thought you were going to use this to “check your e-mail.”
Mom: Eventually. How would I be able to write e-mails anyway? You don’t know how to write in Chinese.
Ernie: I’m going out for a cigarette.
Mom: I thought you quit smo-
Ernie: I’M GOING OUT FOR A CIGARETTE.

So yeah. With my hard-earned time and money, I just invested in a very nice computer for my mother. That she’ll probably won’t use. On the flip side, she probably doesn’t know that I’m writing about her on the Internet. I’m making a long bet that she won’t know how to type my full English name into a search engine. If there’s a God in Heaven, He’ll keep her from typing my name in a search engine.

Do you have an Asian American relative who has struggled with their mental health?

Have you yourself been confused or afraid in trying to find them help? Frustrated by the mental health system? Felt alone? Worried about what this means for your own future and that of your family?

My own mother has struggled with schizophrenia for a very long time, and I would love to talk with you and share stories. I am interested in hearing what challenges you faced, both emotionally and in finding care for your relative, and how you are dealing with them.

Please email me at rebecca[at]hyphenmagazine.com.

Best wishes,
Rebecca

To be honest, this was probably the first in-depth, face-to-face conversation I’ve ever had with another Asian person who’s had a close family member suffer from a mental illness. There’s a stigma with mental illness with Asian immigrants and Asian Americans – so much so, that when Rebecca told me about specific support groups that exist in San Francisco relating to mental illness support groups that communicate in both Chinese and English, my first thought was “why do they have the luxury of talking about their feelings? I had to figure this shit out all on their own.” Which, of course, is a horrible thing to think, but it’s true. I’m thirty years old, and the actions of my sister have shaped me into the person I am today, for better or for worse, and there’s not much that can really be done at this point, except vent about it to the Internet if she freaks out.

I kinda laughed off the suggestion on attending one of the support sessions – the weblog is my therapy, I joked, and I’m a little worried that the meetings will be a little “Ya Ya Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”-ish, but I might give it a go and see if there’s anything useful for me. We’ll see.

Tomorrow is the big move to San Francisco. Today was pack day, or at the very least, “pack as much as you can that isn’t tied down” day. As a result, my mother is spending the night, mostly due to a combination of her wanting to help and Asian parental obligation and child obligation to let the parental unit guilt the child into moving far, far away from said parents. If “far, far away” meant, like, a 35 minute drive.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m totally grateful for her being here – I hate packing and moving with every fiber of my soul. The fact that I’ve hired movers to actually do the grunt work for the first time ever says a lot for the fact that I’m willing to pay money out of my pocket to make the moving process that much easier. But packing is a necessary evil, and my Mom, bless her heart, is here to help me out, and crack the whip and constantly brew pots of tea – even if it means having Taiwanese commercials for the SAT in the background and her rummaging through my photographs, wondering if every girl in the photograph could have been “the one.”

That doesn’t mean she’s not driving me crazy. (Mandarin in italics.)

Mom: Why did you throw this away? (Holds up an old shirt that hasn’t been worn since 1997 that was lying in the throwaway pile. It might as well have the Cross-Colours logo on it.)
Me: Because I haven’t worn this since college.
Mom: But it’s warm.
Me: I haven’t worn it, Mom.
Mom: But it’s warm. San Francisco is colder than Fremont up there. SO COLD!!
Me: Ma, I’m not going to wear it.
Mom: …
Me: …
Mom: I’m packing it back in.
Me: Fine.

You know how some people use moves as an opportunity to purge stuff? Somehow, I get the feeling I’m going to end up with more items than I started.

Mom: What’s this?
Me: It’s a business card holder.
Mom: So what is this inside?
Me: It’s a gift certificate card for Coldstone.
Mom: Coldstone?
Me: Ice cream.
Mom: ICE CREAM? WHY ARE YOU EATING ICE CREAM? ICE CREAM GETS YOU FAT.
Me: Mom, I haven’t eaten any ice cream. That’s why I still have the card.
Mom: Then why do you have the card?
Me: It was a gift from a co-worker.
Mom: Some gift! Those Americans, they’re always eating their ice cream. Whenever they’re sending you things like this you just tell them that you don’t need something like this!

<BEGIN DREAM SEQUENCE>
[cut to an awkward, imaginary date]
Cute guy: Hey.. I know we barely know each other, but I figured I should send you something, so I got you… this. I know it’s not much, but…
Ernie: Ohmygod, that’s totally sweet of y- oh.
Cute guy: “Oh?”
Ernie: It’s a gift certificate for Coldstone. You see, my mom always mentions that “your people” always eat ice cream, and really, ice cream gets me fat, so, uhm, yeah. No.
CG: …
Ernie: …
</BEGIN DREAM SEQUENCE>

Me: Okay, Mom. I’ll do that.
Mom: Hmph!

Alas, no heroin-in-a-tube this time around; I’m sure she’ll be back tomorrow or the day after to resume the search. She’s here, of course, because I now “work from home.” Once you officially take on the “work from home” moniker, it gives your parents full permission to come to your house at all hours of the day. You warn them about work hours, but when they see their child sitting at a desk typing on a laptop, he’s simply on the computer; he’s not working. Today, my mother brought over bedroom curtains. (Mandarin, like always, in italics.)

E: Why did you bring bedroom curtains? I didn’t ask for curtains.
Mom: Your bedroom lets in too much light. When I’m in your room and I look at the window, someone’s always outside, looking in.
E: Uhm, when are you in my bedroom? How often are you in my bedroom? Are you coming in my house when I’m not at home?
Mom: (skirting issue) You need curtains for your safety. SAFE-TEE. Maybe if you knew any karate I wouldn’t be so worried about you. These curtains that I bought aren’t long enough. I’ll swing by tomorrow.
E: …

You know the sad thing is? At least I can laugh at the outrageousness of conversations with my mom. Because conversations when my father is over? Well, they happen a little differently.

E: Dad, how was your day-
Dad: Your mother and I are getting old, and you will need to take care of us, but only one of us. Will your mother be moving in or will I?
E: …

And on days such as those, heroin-in-a-tube doesn’t sound so bad after all.

We’re watching a news segment on the death of James Brown, and she turns to me. “I DIDN’T KNOW THE KING OF ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE IS BLACK!!” Two exclamation points, even. She was that shocked.

My sister has phases: her depressive phase, her psychotic destructive phase, her manic phase. When she’s in her manic phase, it’s like a game of word association: idea A leads to thought pattern B, which naturally goes to ideas C and D. She naturally brings up idea D, and I try to rationalize to myself that ideas B and C exist; it convinces me that there is a method to her madness instead of her “just being crazy.”

“Why is he the ‘king of atmospheric pressure,’ jie?” I gently ask her.

“Because he is. HE JUST IS.” She starts getting aggressive, and sensing that, I drop the subject and we watch television again.

Now there’s a segment on a domestic dispute in Pleasanton, where a husband killed his wife on Christmas Eve. “Ernie,” she asks. “What race is… is Marlon, the magical magician?”

And just like that, my mind starts playing word associations. I briefly imagine “Marlon, the magical magician” as Morgan Freeman in a tuxedo, pulling a rabbit out of a hat. No, she can’t be talking about that. Marlon… Marlon… magician… wizard…

“You mean… Merlin the Wizard?” I don’t dare wonder how she came up with that after watching a homicide report on the news.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “Merlin the Wizard is whoever you want it to be.”

“Well, I think he’s Russian.”

Twenty minutes later, I say goodbye to whats left of my family at Christmas and hop in my car. I chain-smoke half my pack of cigarettes.

Writing this list was surprisingly difficult – there’s been a lot of trivial stuff about my life I’ve already blogged about over the past five years but have since gone off-line. And while 90% of my life is an open book, what is there left to share to all of the Internet, knowing that friends, co-workers and family members will be reading this as well? Needless to say, here we go:

1. I come from a military family. To anyone who’s ever met me or seen a photograph of me in person, this seems like the most ridiculous concept ever, but it’s true. My paternal grandfather fought under Chiang Kai-Shek, fought the Communists but lost, retreating to Taiwan. My father served in the ROC navy before our family immigrated to the United States some time during the early 70’s.
2. I wanted to be an actor in high school. I was really into it Freshman year; I was in the high school improvisation troupe, my first (and last) play was as De Pinna in our high school version of You Can’t Take It With You. Shortly after that play, my father decided I needed to take more computer courses, pulled me out of all my extra-curricular classes related to performing and made me take a junior college course in Pascal, not that I’m bitter or anything. (Some trivia: also in that play was a senior named Adam Sessler. Thirteen years later, he’s now the host of a little TV show called X-Play. And me? I’m writing this blog entry. Such is my life.)
3. If you already knew this fact, consider yourself an old-school LYD reader: Blogs got big around the same time as Survivor, so I used to do blog versions of popular reality game shows, where the winners would win real money. SurvivorBlog was the first game I did, and I also did a version of The Mole called PuppetMaster, which got profiled in Entertainment Weekly. (More trivia: SixApart’s Mena Trott had applied as a contestant for PuppetMaster, but didn’t make the cut. I’m still kicking myself in the ass over that one.) I would LOVE to do another blog game some day, but knowing how blog-savvy people are nowadays this would be a logistical nightmare.
4. Most American universities seem to have an abundance of a cappella groups. UC Davis didn’t have such a group. Me and three other guys DID, however, create a horrible R&B group called Unrealized Potential, where I would play the piano and harmonize. Think “Boyz II Men,” except really, really not good – I think we spent more time making sure our matching vests matched, rather than making sure we could actually hit the notes. We ended up singing “On Bended Knee” and Jodeci’s “Lately” at a dorm talent show, where we were promptly laughed off the stage. I think we did, anyway. I have a tendency to block things out from memory.
5. Now that I think about it, I guess most people don’t know I used to play the piano. Like all Asian kids, piano lessons were forced upon me when I was four years old; I took classical piano lessons until Junior High school, and then “rebelled” in my piano playing by playing jazz piano and accompanying a church choir in high school. A part of me wishes I still kept up with the piano – I haven’t sat down at a piano bench in years – but I can still read sheet music, albeit awkwardly.

I’ll update this blog post soon as to who I’ll tag. God, I’m so late on this. Hopefully they get the memo.

1. Joe.My.God.
2. Ariel Meadow Stallings
3. Glenda Bautista

Yes, the meme says to tag five people. I’m a rebel.

Mom, on the phone: Ernie, I want to come to your house and help clean up while you’re at work. How do I get in your condo gate?

Usually I would have issues with my mother with free access inside my house, but considering I recently moved back to Fremont from San Francisco and my place contains unopened boxes and dead plants, I am more than open to asking for help. (By the way, for people who haven’t really read my blog for an extended period of time: Mandarin is in italics.)

Ernie: It’s pound sign, followed by 9111.
Mom: So, 9111.
Ernie: No, pound sign. Pound-9-1-1-1.
Mom: WHAT IS… POUND SIGN?
Ernie: Uhmm.. I don’t know how to say that in Chinese. It’s the button next to the zero.
Mom: ZERO.. 9… 1…
Ernie: NO, MOM! THE POUND SIGN.
Mom: …
Ernie: [sigh] Just wait until someone else opens the gate and come in behind them.

Afterwards, thanks to the power of the internets, I find that the Chinese word for number sign is “井號,” or jǐng hào. The jǐng in jǐng hào means “water well.” How could she not understand that? I call her back.

Mom: Hello?
Ernie: Jǐng hào! That’s what it’s called! First you press jǐng hào and then you press 9111!
Mom: What the hell are you talking about?
Ernie: jǐng hào. You know… water.
Mom: …?
Ernie: Water?
Mom: I have no idea what you’re talking about. [click]

To make a long story short, I have now been guilted to drive to my mothers house to drop off my gate opener. This means, of course, that my mother not only has free access into my condo complex and house, but I will now be punching in codes into my own complex, and if the number changes, I am locked me out of my own place of residence while my mother re-arranges my furniture. Or worse.

But on the flip side, everyone on the Internet now knows how to enter my condo complex. Please do not rob me. You may steal from my Indian and Taiwanese neighbors, however.

Her cocktail of drugs has kept my sister’s psychotic episodes in check, but it has had its consequences. She has gained rapid weight; more weight than me. When she’s doing “well,” her eyes glaze over – she’ll make simple statements and I do my best to answer in clear, concise statements and to talk about light subjects. Stuff that was taught to me one weekend when I sat in a Border’s, skimming through books of families of people living with schizophrenia. Sometimes she’ll burst into laughter, and when asked whats so funny, she’ll quickly reply, “nothing.” “Always laughing,” my mom would say. “And nothing to laugh about.”

Those are the good days. There have been bad days. I’ve written about those. I haven’t seen them in a while, but once every couple of months or so, my mother will make a frantic phone call late at night: “Wo bu sufu. Ta you shenbing le.” Literally: I don’t feel good. She’s sick again. How I interpret it: I don’t know how much I can take of this.

If there was any hope for her having a full recovery, it’s been gone for years. Any hope that my parents had for her to find a job, become an integral part of society through medication, all that has gone away; they – maybe it’s we, I’m not sure – want to keep her medicated. Being medicated is better than having her hurt herself, or people she doesn’t know. So she does what she knows – she takes public transportation early in the morning to a large metropolitan city like Berkeley or San Francisco, where I presume she walks around. “Preaching to the homeless non-verbally,” to paraphrase her, more or less.

Years ago, my parents would argue with her or lecture her or console her with suggestions, suggestions that have ranged from counseling to programs to experimental drugs to sending her to China to find her a doctor husband. Now, my parents are exhausted. My father has moved out. My mother is left to deal with the situation, bitter and angry.

That’s what saddens me the most about this whole situation.

And as for me: I will be her legal guardian in ten to twenty years, approximately around the same time I start deciding on separate living arrangements for my mother and father. I’m scared – fucking terrified – and I don’t know how I’m going to handle this alone, but I have approximately ten to twenty years to figure this out, and I won’t have time to be exhausted once the time comes.

My sister had her birthday last month, and I will have my birthday next month. Both monumental, for different reasons entirely.

Ernie:  How was your day?
Mom:  I bought cherries today at Safeway.  The man told me the cherries were for $1.50, so I bought a whole bunch of them, except when I went to the cash register they charged me $4.50, so I told them $1.50 and they asked if I had CLUB CARD and I said I left mine at home so they entered my phone number and they gave me a discount!

I swear to God, my mother is turning into the Crazy Asian Ladies that white comedians talk about in their stand-up routines.

Ernie:  (to my sister) And yours?
Angela:  I did missionary work.
Mom:  She takes BART and walks around Berkeley by herself for the entire day.
Angela:  It was non-verbal.

It’s taken me 19 years, but the whole responsible adult bullshit has caught on to the way I interact with my sister now.  Medication keeps her psychosis in check, but in her age and frame of mind, it would be difficult for her to ever transform into a fully functional member of society.  I talk to her in a calm and soothing voice as instructed to me by various books on mental illness and in turn, she answers in pleasant one to two word responses.  She asks me if I bought the shirt I’m wearing, like every other time I come home, and now I know enough to say, “No, the shirt isn’t new, but I bought it at Old Navy, I’m glad you like it” instead of flipping out and asking why she’s always asks the same question every time I go home for dinner.

Sometimes though, when I’m watching Korean soap operas with my mom, she’ll turn and look at me, just look at me, as if we were identical twins and she were trying to send some sort of desparate, telepathic message.  An action like this would have previously triggered something combative or defensive inside, but now I just silently nod and smile and make a motion to the TV.  And when she blankly stares at the sobbing girl eating rice on the television screen, I’ll wonder to myself: “What did you want to say?  What would you say to me, if you could?  Where did everything go horribly, horribly wrong?”