World’s Most UNGRATEFUL Daughter

Today was rough from the very start.  Well, not from the very start since my bro, my niece, and I went to grab homemade peanut ice cream on a stick for pre-breakfast.  It was yummy and made by the University.  My parents were late to meet us, then we had to discuss what we were doing this morning.  My mom called me to my bro’s room, but then everything remained the same, anyway.  We walked to the local bakery where I had a curry bun.  Yum.  Yum yum.  Then, we walked to the flower market and looked around.  I saw a tray of little lucky cat figurines, and I bought a black one.  We walked a bit more, and I had to keep adjusting so my father wasn’t behind me.  I was already grumpy because I said I didn’t want to walk, and I was outvoted.  My feet are very sore and so are my knees.  We are going up more mountains tomorrow and Tuesday, and we will have TWO tours.  Ugh.

Anyway, after the flower market, we went to the jade market.  Things were beautiful, but not really my style.  I don’t wear much jewelry, and jade is not one of my favorites.  Still, it was interesting to look around.  All the different-colored jades were beautiful.  We walk by a vendor who is selling the traditional jade bracelets.  Not my style at all, and I can tell in a glance that they won’t fit, anyway.  I have thick wrists and big hands–nothing like the delicate hands of real Taiwanese women.  Anyway, my dad’s face lights up.  He wants to buy me one of the bracelets because they are good luck.  I tell him that I don’t want one and that they won’t fit, anyway, and I walk away.  I get called back by my mom, and stupid me, I go.  She tells me that my dad wants to buy me one of the bracelets.  I say no.  They won’t fit, for one.   My mom asks for a big bracelet (in Chinese), and I am handed a bracelet that I know won’t fit.  It doesn’t.  It doesn’t even come close.

Oh wait.  At one point, we were getting a taxi.  You’re not supposed to have four people in the back, but the driver said he’d do it for an extra twenty (sixty cents in American money).  My brother said, “Maybe Minna should sit in the front, and the rest of us in the back?”  This was as my father was climbing into the taxi.  My mom and I asked why.  My brother said, “Because Minna is…wider (making the arms bulking out to the side gesture) than Dad?”  Thanks, bro.  I already know I’m a fat cow.  I don’t need to be reminded of it.

Back to the bracelet.  My parents ask the sellers for a bigger one.  I am mortified by this point and tearing up.  The seller brings out one that he insists will fit.  It doesn’t.  I say no and start walking away.  I am in tears by this point and feeling like shit.  I know that I have embarrassed my father by making him lose face in front of the sellers, and I feel bad about that, too.  However, the incident reminds me of when I was twelve.  He brought me a big French doll from Taiwan and presented it to me proudly.  I never played with it, and it actually creeped me out with the blinking eyes.  I never played with dolls at all, and I was twelve, for god’s sake.

With the bracelet incident, I was back to being twelve again.  My dad stormed out in front of us all and pouted and sulked for the next half an hour.  My mom came up to  me and told me in a reproachful tone that Dad wanted to buy me a nice jade bracelet.  I said they didn’t fit.  She said I could use plastic (which reminded me, disturbingly, of a gynecologist shoving a gloved hand up a pussy) or soap (so said the vendor).  Yeah, like I wanted a reminder every time I wore the bracelet of what fat hands and wrists I had.  Good idea, that.  She told me it was an expensive bracelet (she likes to tell us the price of things), 3,500 NT, which is a little more than a hundred dollars.

I don’t fucking wear jewelry.  Except for earrings and sometimes rings.  Plus, it’s jade.  Which means it’s breakable.  Which means I’ll break it.  I am fucking clumsy.  Plus, it’s expensive.  I don’t wear expensive jewelry since I’ll either break it or lose it.  Finally, I am not his whore, and I don’t want expensive, but useless gifts from him.  I had an immediate revulsion at the idea of wearing a bracelet given to me by him.  I may be the perfect whore, but I am no longer his.

At that moment, I realized that I had no value to my family outside of  being whatever they wanted me to be.  My dad:  a whore (not necessarily his).  My brother:  a sounding board.  My mother:  a clone.  My niece:  A listening board.  As long as I listened to them and follow what they want, I am tolerated.  I don’t expect anything else from my niece as she is only eleven.   Quite rightly so, she wouldn’t be interested in my life.  It’s the other three who don’t have the same excuse.   None of them give a shit about me as a person, really, because they can’t fathom a life like mine or a personality like mine.  My brother will ramble on and on about something, but if I want to talk about something, his eyes glaze over.  Same with my mom.  If she is obsessed with something, then nothing or no one else matters.  My father has his own ideas and simply cannot comprehend someone thinking differently.

I am in the wrong family.  They don’t really want me as a family member.  In fact, they would be more than happy if the real me completely disappeared and the Stepford Minna took over full-time.  I tried.  I really tried to dig her out for this trip, but I can’t quite be her any longer.  And, I can’t be the real me.

I hate myself right now.  I feel like a worthless piece of shit, and I can’t do anything right.  I am trying so hard to just STFU and take it, but it’s not easy.  The one thing left that I actually wanted to do is being cancelled.  The reasons for the cancellation are sound (too much traveling in three days), but I still can’t help feeling if my brother wanted to do it, we’d go.  We’re going to an electronics store because he wants to go.  If he and I don’t agree on something, his way supersedes mine.  I know it’s because he’s older and a guy, and it hurts every fucking time.  I don’t know why they bother consulting me on anything when they just dismiss whatever I have to say, anyway.

I broke this afternoon.  Something inside of me just gave up.  I can’t try any more with my family.  I can’t try to be me or find my place in this family.  I don’t fit.  At all.  And, I suck for it (not in a good way).  I am tempted to commit seppuku when I get back to the States.  What’s the point?  I will never bring honor to my family or make them proud of me.  They will never do more than tolerate me, and that’s contingent on me not being me.  In fact, it’s the biggest reason I try not to bring my troubles to anyone–I’d been taught that tolerance of me is based upon the total abnegation of my self and my soul.  I still have a hard time believing that people could get to know the real me and still want to be friends with me.  And right now, I feel like I’m caught in a no-win situation.

Being here is not good for my psyche (which, let’s face it, is shaky even at the best of times).   My mother talked about us coming back again (in terms of canceling the one trip I really wanted to do) so we could do the things we hadn’t done.  My brother said something about in five years because by then, the youngest boy would be old enough to remember the trip.  My immediate thought?  “Oh, HELL no!”  If I am alive in five years, there is no way in fuck that I am coming back here again.  Well, ok, I can’t say that for sure, but I can say that if the family dynamics do not change, I will not do another family trip again.  If I want to feel like a complete and utter worthless human being, I can do that in the States on my own at much less of a cost.  I don’t need to travel halfway around the world to feel like this.

I am a shit for not being more grateful.  I am a shit for caring so intensely about the Taiwanese girls prancing about around me in their three-inch heels and size zero jeans.  I am a stupid shit for wanting a Taiwanese Barbie doll body, but not the mind to match.  I am a fat shit who really needs to stop eating (and will as soon as I return to America.  I may be a fat shit, but I’m not insane.  I am going to eat the food here until it kills me).

Oh, I bought another black cat charm at shop of the Miniature Museum.   Now, I have my familiars with me wherever I go.

I have four more days after today, and I am losing ground with every day.  I am afraid that by the time I return to the States, all the progress I’ve made in the last year will be gone, and then some.  I am afraid that Stepford Minna will find a way to completely return, and she’ll be stronger than ever.

I am afraid the real Minna will disappear for good.

P.S.  There are no food pics for the day because the day is not over yet, and my bro is taking a nap now.  I will post them when I can.