When I was 8, I learned that families weren’t supposed to eat in front of the TV. “Meal times are for talking to each other, not for staring at that box,” said Jenni-Lynn’s mom, who babysat for me when my parents worked late. I had asked if I could watch “Mork and Mindy” while eating my plate of Sloppy Joes.
“That’s not how we do things here,” she said. My cheeks burned as I caught the exasperated look she exchanged with her husband before she sat me down at their long wooden table.
But that was how we did things in my home. My parents, Chinese immigrants who moved to San Francisco in the 1970s, communicated to us that it was dinner time by blasting the “Family Feud” soundtrack from the kitchen TV. As Richard Dawson smooched the ladies, Mom set the table. Dad slumped in his chair, grumpy from the 12-hour days he spent folding other people’s underwear and towels.
By the first question, we were slurping soup and reaching across the table with our chopsticks. By the second question, we were playing along. Sometimes we joked about the matching outfits we’d wear on the show. Other times, my sister and I used our awkward Chinglish to translate phrases like “name the most macho guy in Hollywood.” Dad insisted that if we ever made it onto the show, one of his daughters must play the head of household role.
Other evenings, we ate to the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. The day the space shuttle Challenger exploded was one of the few times we let the food grow cold. As the president addressed the nation, Mom couldn’t help but repeat what we had already heard her say dozens of times.
“Baba shuai,” she said, using the Mandarin word for handsome. “Look like Chinese Ronald Reagan,” she said, gesturing toward Dad’s jet-black hair, molded with Dippity-Do into the same tornado-resistant shape.
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When these shows were over, dinner and the only time we spent together were over.
As a child, I knew families were supposed to plant carrots, drive to Christmas tree farms, and tell campfire stories. I knew my parents were supposed to sit across from me and ask me about school. But we did none of those things. Family time for us meant sitting with our chairs angled, as they always were, toward that box.
I moved out for good in the mid ’90s. But whenever I visited, it was the same routine, except that I got more of my favorite foods: Cantonese poached chicken with ginger oil, stir-fried Chinese broccoli, and tofu in soy sauce and Shaoxing wine. Dad bought dan tat, or sweet egg tarts, so we’d have dessert as a reason to linger at the table for one more show.
What we watched, however, started to change. I introduced my parents to “Friends.” Mom’s favorite was Joey because he was lovably hu li hu tu, or scatterbrained. But when it came to Ross, she thought Rachel could do better.
My sister was more daring. She invited Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte to our kitchen table.
“Aiyyaaa,” was all my dad could utter, shaking his head in disapproval. Even in its syndicated version, there was no avoiding the fact that “Sex and the City” existed in a different galaxy than “Mork and Mindy.”
My sister wasn’t the only one to bring tension to the table. About 10 years ago, Fox News started joining us for dinner. Before that, the only political critique I had ever heard my parents offer was that George W. Bush’s eyes were too close together. That, Mom insisted, was a bad sign. But now, egged on by cable news pundits, my parents started something new: ranting.
“Too many immigrants. Taking jobs. Not respecting the way we do things here,” my dad said out of the blue one evening, after we had just sat down to braised pork belly and bok choy.
I didn’t know whether to laugh at the irony of his statement, or to rage back my disagreement. I did neither. Habit took over and I just changed the channel. Although Richard Dawson was long gone, I was never as grateful as I was then to hear the familiar game show theme song.
About a year ago, they noticed their cable bill inching up toward $200, and decided it was just too much. After many discussions, we settled on a $40 digital antenna. They would still get the same live TV experience, but no more cable news, I warned. The idea of free TV forever, however, overrode all else. And with that, my 80-year-old parents cut the cord.
Since then, we’ve discovered how eclectic the programs can be on locally broadcast channels. I go home now to find my dad watching GRIT, a station devoted entirely to old Westerns, or my mom engrossed with a chubby, middle-aged lady in a Hello Kitty apron showing viewers how to make Taiwanese oyster omelets.
When I was a child, I decided it was better to lie to teachers or other well-meaning adults when they asked what kinds of things we did as a family. It felt easier than admitting the truth — that we didn’t do anything together except watch TV.
After four decades at the same white table with its wobbly yellow legs, I now understand that we were, despite what Jenni-Lynn’s mom thought, communicating deeply with each other after all. We just needed a way to convey the things we couldn’t express directly because of language, cultural or generational differences. The TV became our universal translator.
Through our favorite game show, my parents acknowledged how much they relied on me and my sister to take the lead for them. Through my favorite sitcom, Mom conveyed, implicitly, that she knew how lonely I was after my first breakup, and that I deserved better, just like Rachel. And through my parents’ political outbursts, I have grudgingly come to accept that they are, after many decades of feeling like outsiders, expressing a sense of belonging by claiming this country as their own.
Because of Covid-19, I only recently started seeing my parents again, after many months away. Despite everything going on, I still come home to find a young Ronald Reagan appearing in “Santa Fe Trail” or “The Last Outpost,” looking like the all-American hero my parents remember him as. Without fail, my mom describes how handsome my dad was as a young man, with his perfectly gelled copycat hairstyle. I resist the urge to tell her she’s said this hundreds of times. I just remind myself that there are fewer of these dinners together ahead of us than there are behind us. I just listen as I reach for more food. And, together, we all smile back at the TV.
LiAnne Yu is an anthropologist and writer based in San Francisco and Kailua Kona, Hawaii.
"TV" - Google News
July 17, 2020 at 04:00PM
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TV Was My Family’s Universal Translator - The New York Times
"TV" - Google News
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