Mothers Like the Great Sea, Just Like My Home

By Cynthia Li

Winds and Dragons

Nuwa, who roamed the Earth filled with luscious greenery and plush grasses, felt lonely inhabiting the beautiful world by herself. So when she encountered a long flowing river, she picked up the malleable yellow clay from the banks and started to mold it. When she saw her own reflection, she was inspired to pinch and poke until she had created beings in her exact likeness. Thus were born the first human beings, making Nuwa the first mother. 

And a mother she was. As the Gods of Fire and Water engaged in a heady fight to determine the leader of heaven, the Earth crumbled around them. Fire and water continuously fell from the sky, and the pillars holding it up came tumbling down, creating havoc where the humans lived below. Seeing her children in the face of such suffering, Nuwa held the sky up on her back, with water streaming down her face, hair, and body. She replaced the pillars and rose the sky again. Using stones, Nuwa filled the holes in the sky, gathered the ashes of reeds to halt the rushing waters, and restored balance to the Earth. Unable to find enough material to close the sky, she decided to use her own very essence to plug the sky, performing the act of ultimate sacrifice for her human children.

筒 Stones 

My understanding of my mother’s mother is quite limited, her only role being known to me as the matriarch of the Chen family. When she reminisces, she speaks of her time raising my mom and my uncles. She’s often deemed as dramatic and big-mouthed by my mom and other family members, which may be where my own dramatics come from. She is definitely my most emotional family member, as one of my earliest memories of her is both of us sitting on our bathroom floor, her crying about something offensive my five-year-old mouth must have said, and me crying about her crying. My grandma runs a headstrong household, my mom and uncles all being loud, opinionated, and strong-willed. She’s always saying “Ah, make sure your mother sleeps, she’s always working too hard. She never sleeps.”

Recently, my grandpa was talking about the traits of a perfect wife. He’s getting pretty old, so his conservatism often clouds well-intended words. “She must have a smile as bright as a sunflower. Not that fake smile, a genuine one. She must also be proficient in the home, light a fire in the kitchen and the family. She must be social and have a great personality to the outside world.” I think about my grandma, his wife, who goes to the adult daycare center and haggles with the owners to give her cash instead of coupons and walks all around Flushing on her achy legs to drag home a cart full of groceries every day. I think about how she’s always on my grandpa’s team when they play mahjong; she gives him her winnings easily, with a smile that brings out her crow’s feet eyes. I think about how when my mom or grandpa snaps, it’s always at her first because she did something wrong. When my aunt tells my grandpa to compliment her more, he always says “I compliment her all the time, she’s done so much for this family.”

萬 Characters 

My mom always says they arrived in America with two suitcases and nothing else. Their college degrees (in finance) somehow didn’t translate to degrees in America, so for two years as my dad was getting his Master’s here, my mom worked as a cleaning lady. Only when my dad got his Master’s and a job did my mom go back to college in the States.

My mom became an accountant. It wasn’t a shock for us to see her get home at 2 or 3 AM, especially during tax season. Growing up, there were weeks that, between our school and her work, my sibling and I wouldn’t see her for a week straight. In those short moments we did get to see her, she was always yelling “Did you get your homework done? Let me see your practice book. Why are you up so late?” It was as if she was cramming all of her efforts to parent in the few hours we got to see her each week. Her overbearingness became an overwhelming part of how I saw her then. I harbored a bit of resentment towards her, asking myself why she had that kind of authority over my life when I saw so little of her. 

Unlike my early memories of my grandma, I didn’t see my mom cry until I was around 15. I still remember a dark room, with nothing but a yellowy desk light to shine on the tears already rolling down my face. I can’t remember what we were fighting about, but most arguments at that time were about her not understanding my teenage “needs”, like being on social media 24/7 and always texting this guy I liked. I remember telling her “You don’t care about me. You should be more concerned with your own anger issues.” I turned and saw her starting to cry. “I don’t know what to do anymore, I spent a couple thousand dollars on a nice vacation for you and you spend the entire time on your phone.” I felt my stomach doing flip-flops, my teary eyes looking into hers. Oh. Maybe she just needed a friend.

As I get closer to the age that she was when she immigrated, I start to see her for who else she is: a woman, a person with her own feelings, motivations, desires, and insecurities. I think my love for her has grown exponentially, as I learn so much more about the magnitude of her sacrifices to provide the perfect life for my family.

索 Bamboo 

Though having children is far in my future, I’ve learned that motherhood is inherently linked to sacrifice. Being a mother means I need to prioritize my child’s well-being first, to carve out a path for them to pursue anything their heart imagines. I come from a long line of women who knew what they wanted and pushed our family forward to the point that I could study something as impractical and unlucrative as art. Though the course of growing up has changed my perception of the women of my family, I am now able to not only empathize with their actions, but see parts of their sacrifices, emotions, and motivations within me. I am my strong-willed, powerful, career-driven mother’s daughter. I am my sensitive, nurturing, maternal grandmother’s granddaughter. 

Cynthia Li is a second year majoring in Studio Art. She has a passion for creating and hopes that through writing and artmaking, she can contribute to Generasian’s ongoing mission of sharing Asian voices.