Spinning the Lazy Susan in a Chinese Restaurant: Food & Family Feuds

As a little girl, I imagined the Lazy Susans at the center of the round tables in Chinese restaurants as a wheel of fortune, a revolving stage where family dramas could be played out.

For example, my father always swooped down on the best pieces from the platters, such as the chewy heart from the steamed chicken with yellow bumpy skin, which was supposed to give me courage. He always served me before he served himself. He would stop eating his roll of beloved Lifesavers to give me the grape one because we both agreed it was the best flavor. As I grew up, not only did I return the favor, but I made sure that my dad’s small porcelain cup was never empty and always filled with fresh hot tea to accompany the tasty food that I heaped onto his rice bowl — such as sweet and sour spare ribs, honey walnut shrimp, and beef slices with bok choy. I knew the customers from the other tables deemed me as a good Chinese daughter who doted on her father; my actions speaking louder than the deafening din of diphthong Cantonese chatter.

The problem, of course, was the other family members who were left out — my mother. The omission on my part was performed on purpose, so that my father would sometimes feel embarrassed by all the attention lavished upon him and tell me to serve my mom as well. I would then do it mechanically, getting a spoonful of the dish closest to me to dump on her plate, not bothering to spin the Lazy Susan to get to the good stuff at the other side of the table. Treating her the same way I treated him would be disloyal since my mother never had any time for me. My father, on the other hand, spent time with me by reading his Chinese newspaper out in the living room where I was studying for a test at school. Meanwhile, my mother was always holed up in her room going through decades of diary entries in order to find some bone of contention to spring upon him when he was about to sleep, because that was the only time when he could no longer ignore her. This meant that his temper often blew up.

“You could even piss off the Buddha!” he would spit in Cantonese among other much more uncivil things.

Given the complex family dynamics that could explode anywhere and anytime, I shouldn’t have been surprised to witness the drama unfolding once again at a table in a Chinese restaurant decades later. It didn’t matter that my entire family was in Hawaii for my niece Caitlin’s wedding (besides my husband who could not take time off), nor that I was nearly 50 years old with two sons aged 13 and 10 by my side, after we had traveled 27 hours from our home in Italy on the other side of the world.

After the wedding rehearsal, our whole family was dining heartily in a Chinese restaurant when Caitlin’s brow suddenly darkened.

“You guys,” her voice quivered, doe eyes starting to glisten, “Mom is all festive now, but she certainly wasn’t when I first told her I was expecting.”

We all fell silent. The only movement was coming from my chopsticks picking up a crispy white shrimp chip to place on each of my sons’ plates. 

Not getting the desired response she wanted, Caitlin ventured, “I have to tell you what happened. Mom only said, ‘Oh, I wanted a girl.’ I thought she would be glad I was having a boy, but no. And that was it, while my mother-in-law-to-be Peggy totally hugged me. Peggy said she was so happy and she was almost in tears. But I couldn’t get the same kind of reaction from my own mom!”

With that final accusation, Caitlin bursted into tears.

We shifted uncomfortably in our chairs and looked at each other. My sister Janine dug out a package of tissues from her purse to hand over.

My sister Candace’s reaction to the news surprised me. I also thought my sister would celebrate Caitlin providing a male heir to continue her husband-to-be’s family name. The fact that she didn’t made me wonder if she wanted to deny my niece the satisfaction and acknowledgement. Or perhaps Candace actually did treasure girls and her relationship with Caitlin more than she let on, and that was her subtle way of saying so, by wishing the same for her own daughter.

At that moment in the restaurant, Candace’s apologetic look expressed guilt for hurting and disappointing her daughter, as well as ruining our good time at the restaurant and causing a scene. She reached out a diamond-braceleted hand to spin the Lazy Susan until the plate of lobster pieces cooked with ginger and scallions gleaned in front of her. Her chopsticks reached out for the hard, red-orange claw and neatly deposited it on the bride-to-be’s plate.

“Okay, Caitlin?”

My niece sobbed even harder.

What I was witnessing seemed to validate the frequent portrayals of conflicts between Chinese mothers and daughters in books and films. But why was this?

I thought about my wise Austrian co-worker Ellie who had lived in five different continents and taught me about high-context vs. low-context cultures. American-born Caitlin speaking directly and openly about how she felt was low-context. Her words could be taken at face value with nothing to interpret. On the other hand, Candace was born and raised in Hong Kong with Cantonese as her first language, so she thought and acted in a high-context fashion. For example, she would never ask someone to open the window in a room. Instead, she would hint at it with phrases such as, “It sure is hot in here, isn’t it? I wish we could have some fresh air.” You needed to read between the lines to get the real message.

Thus, it seemed neither Caitlin nor Candace would ever be satisfied. Caitlin wanted an outpouring of words and physical affection, but that was simply not Candace’s style. And on her part, Candace would feel grossly misunderstood if her peace offering of the coveted prize lobster claw was met with Caitlin’s spurn, so there was no first step to reconciliation.

But what else could anyone do? It was too late to turn back time and offer Caitlin a different reaction, and a verbal apology would be meaningless in Candace’s eyes because making amends was not uttering phrases for a quick-fix resolution, but concrete actions of penitence that could only be performed in the future.

While we might have wished that Candace had offered a more joyful reaction, we would not take sides against her because no one can dictate how someone must feel or react, and it could never be the subject of a round table discussion or a democracy vote the way that Caitlin’s appeal appeared to us. 

More than anything else, this was no daytime talk show nor were there any Hollywood scriptwriters to fabricate a solution for a happily ever after. This was real life.

My zen-master brother, Danny, intervened, “Come now, Caitlin, maybe we can have a more productive discussion at another time. I know that you don’t want your eyes to be puffy for the wedding tomorrow. You need to look radiant when your dad walks you down the aisle.”

“Waiter,” he summoned, “can we please get more hot water for our tea?”

As if a spell were broken, the Lazy Susan started spinning again as we got back to eating and talking.

Yet Caitlin’s outburst of emotion remained with me, and I wondered if I should mediate in private between Caitlin and Candace afterward, asking them to say what they observe, feel, need, and request. However, I realized that my own adoption of a Western communication model would load the dice against my sister, who would always be at a disadvantage in America.

Realizing this, I reached out a hand to spin the Lazy Susan until the plate of lobster stopped in front of me. My chopsticks picked up the only claw left, and I leaned across Danny and Janine to place it on Candace’s plate. My oldest sister’s eyes widened in surprise.

“For the mother of the bride.”

Amid the cheers, I don’t know if anyone noticed the symbolism of my trying to place them both on par so that they could reconcile.

Watching my boys watch me, I had to admit that I felt relieved to think that Caitlin would avoid the conflicts that she previously had with Candace, because I feared that mother-daughter conflicts will be forever perpetuated and never resolved in my family. In pre-Communist China, my grandmother favored my uncle over my mother, who was her eldest child. This was justified in our culture by the belief that males were physically stronger than females, thus more useful. In fact, the most expensive Chinese medicine concoctions were reserved for males who worked and needed the replenishment that females supposedly did not. My mother loved learning and going to school, yet her parents did not invest in her continuing beyond an elementary education because a daughter would eventually be given away to a husband’s family. A front-line victim of the historical, geographical, and social context, my mom surely internalized that pervading misogyny, and so it was natural for her to lavish special treatment upon my brother, the only boy among four girls. 

My eldest sister Candace then had a son and a daughter in 1970s America when gender equality gained much ground, but the change in space and time did not seem to help. It simply resulted in my niece Caitlin voicing the injustices aloud, which could have been a good start, a lead for the rest of us to follow. 

Once, Caitlin had openly tried to enlist our help: “You guys, I accused Mom of favoring Maddox and she was like ‘Yeah, so?’ She even admits it and sees no problem!” We had ignored it that time as well, in order to quash conflict and preserve family cohesion, for blood is thicker than watery concepts or principles. The question was not right or wrong — instead, it felt more like “Who are you? How long have we enjoyed a harmonious relationship together?” 

To put it visually, Westerners bring out the scales of justice while the Chinese weigh the sand in an hourglass.

Lost in thought, I discovered that we had reached the end of our meal and the Lazy Susan finally rested still, yet the wheels of my mind could not stop turning with ever more food for thought, to the point that I felt distended and sick, unable to stomach the red bean dessert the waiters brought out.

“But you like it, so just leave the beans and drink the liquid then,” my sister Janine, the eccentric sibling, motioned to the bowl and spoon in front of me. 

I had never considered that option. 

It embodied Janine’s famous motto: “You can pick and choose,” which suddenly took on a brand-new meaning: Instead of feeling overwhelmed by belonging to two distinct cultures, I could simply take what I wanted from each. 

As I watched my boys try out their new treat, I realized that I was already keeping the best and forgetting the rest. In my home, we use non-violent communication to express our thoughts and feelings in an effective non-confrontational manner, and no one washes the dishes alone; we keep each other company as a way to say “I’m with you, I care.”

“It’s good, Mama,” my sons both gave their approval with thumbs up.

I smiled, and I lifted the bowl to my lips to drink. And nothing ever tasted as sweet.

Cover credit: Debbie Tea/Unsplash

Image credits: Jennifer Chan