take it from me, white people just don't understand

"So she said, "Katie, I feel so sad for you." And I said, "Thanks, mom." And then she said, "I feel sad for you because you are so stupid." And I said, "Thanks, mom. I know. I don't need your help."

There are some things the boyfriend just can't understand. One of those things is that my mother is not evil and when she says I am stupid, it's not because she is mean or actually thinks I am stupid. This is simply the Chinese way. My mother's intention was to make me feel so incredibly morose over the loss of my camera that I would perhaps flog myself and repent by solving a few high-level calculus problems. The end result was her teaching me a lesson as if I were 10. The boyfriend couldn't wrap his mind around it. "That's so mean," he said. "She didn't mean it in a mean way though," I said realizing later that it was akin to saying "He was drunk and I didn't have his dinner ready on time."

I recounted mummy's admonishment to An, also Chinese, who replied, "My mom would have said the same thing." I told her about the boyfriend's incredulity. We walk a tightrope between two cultures; exposed to the western ways of parenting with emotion then going home to a few crusted grains of rice adhered to the rim of a chipped bowl from the old country with a side of unwarranted and generalized criticism. We surmised that when white kids lose a camera their parents just buy them a new camera and console them by hugging and telling them how smart and great they are. And then they buy them a pony. So they have something to photograph.