Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of) by Elaine Lui Read Free Book Online

who’s treating her and her friends. It’s impossible to sign for it discreetly, and besides, I never pay for her birthday with a credit card anyway. Chinese establishments prefer cash. And Ma prefers that I pay cash. She’s always on me about it in the days leading up to the event.
    “Don’t forget to bring cash. Best to bring twenties.”
    “Why twenties?”
    “It takes longer to pay in twenties. You have to count out your bills.”
    Here’s how it goes down: After dessert, she’ll tell the staff that we’re ready to settle. They’ll present her with the check. She and Dad will inspect every line item to make sure they weren’t ripped off and that the 10-percent-off special was applied. Ma never eats anywhere Chinese unless she gets a discount. (I have no idea how she gets this discount. All I know is that by the time she brings me to whatever new Chinese restaurant she’s hot on at the moment, the discount is always in place and they always know her by name. Once I tried asking her whether or not she felt gross about eating her food at a discount. She told me that things taste better when they come as a deal.)
    Once my parents are pleased with the check, Ma will make a big production out of passing it to me, announcing to all her guests that I’ll be the one paying for it. Which is my cue to pull out my wallet with a smile on my face, as forty or so pairs of eyes are watching, and take out my stack of twenties, counting them out one by one. The first time I did this I had performance anxiety. That’s exactly what it is—a performance, the performance of paying for Ma’s birthday dinner, playing the part of the generous, dutiful daughter. That first time my hands were unsteady and whentwo bills were stuck together I wasn’t very graceful in pulling them apart; they were wrinkled by the time I laid them down on the table. Ma criticized me afterward for my lack of coordination. She said that people who are magnanimous about paying do so smoothly and elegantly, and that I looked stingy and unwilling. Maybe unconsciously. It was a lot of money. My skills improved the following year. I know this because she didn’t mention it again.
    The birthday-party-paying ceremony is an annual opportunity for Ma to show off. Her showing off, however, is not limited to her birthday parties and, therefore, my paying for things is not limited to her birthdays either.
    I always know when Ma is calling me with an audience. For starters, she always sounds nice when she’s talking to me in front of other people. When I say “nice,” I mean strained. It’s an effort for my ma to modulate that squawking chicken noise into something she thinks sounds sweet but really sounds like she’s choking out her words. One day she called me when she was out with her friends. “Daughter, I told all the aunties at Chinese opera class that you are buying me a cruise and now they all want to come too! We are going to Europe!”
    I never offered to send her on a cruise. Not exactly. We were on the phone the night before and she was complaining about how long it had been since she’d been back to HongKong and even though SARS had passed over a couple of years before, in 2003, she was still afraid of going there. So I told her she should go to Europe, go on holiday with Dad. She said she didn’t want to go to Europe because it was hard to get around and the languages would screw her up. So I told her it’d be easier for her if she went on a cruise because that way there would be a set schedule. She said she’d think about it.
    Not even twenty-four hours later, she not only had thought about it, I was now paying for it. I stayed on the phone silently and let her finish our conversation. She answered questions I didn’t ask.
Oh, daughter, that’s okay. Mommy will take care of her own insurance, you don’t have to worry about that. Yes, daughter, I will make sure to tell you exactly how much it is so that you can call the travel agent. No,