patteren: shellac by tsai

[shellac1: mag107]

Beauty recognizes beauty. Cunning sharpens the dull. Solitude searches for a mate. Every object has a beginning; every thought a link; every person a context.

Today, a little girl is born. Her name is Quincy – Quincy Anne Chu. Her mother, born in California, is part Irish, Finnish, English, Native American, and French. Her father is an immigrant’s son, born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His first language is Mandarin. He learned to speak English at school and by tagging along with the kids next door.

Quincy’s father was frequently told by his mother how fortunate he was to have been born in America, but, in the same breath, she would remind him that They will always see you through your skin. ‘Zhong Guo’, literally Middle Kingdom, otherwise know as China or People’s Republic of China, was Quincy’s great-grandparents’ homeland. Both sets of great-grandparents fled to Taiwan in 1949 to begin a new life under the Nationalist regime.

In 1967, upon being accepted into the doctoral program of mathematics at the University of Michigan, Quincy’s grandfather came to Ann Arbor to look for graduate student housing for married couples. He was a reticent man who read an entire Taiwanese newspaper while eating dinner with his family. So, in addition to riding his big wheel around the cul-de-sac, then his dirt bike around the block, then his very used looking old Volkswagen Rabbit around town, Quincy’s father grew up wondering what his father did all day and dreaming up stories of what he would be when he was all grown.

[shellac2: mag125]

Quincy’s mother was born and raised in San Francisco. The ‘forty-eight’ colors within a box of waxy Crayons were no match against her environment of pastel houses painted in cream orange, magenta, and lime-green with window trims and door frames in apricot, powder blue, and burnt sienna. In the first half of her upbringing, set in the Haight-Ashbury district, she watched her parents smoke joints, play music with deranged guitar sounds, braid their hair, and attend rallies. The rallies started out as mesmerizing and peaceful, but as time progressed, the spirit of the times did not; they often became chaotic and unfocused. For Quincy’s mother, they were a source of consternation and dread. She was in continual fear of losing her parents to the hypnotic beat of the crowd where they would become more dead than alive.

In the second half of her upbringing, her father got promoted to middle management in a small publishing company. The family moved to the more staid Sunset district. For Quincy’s mother, winter was never so cold as a foggy summer night. Mark Twain’s pithy statement of The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco was Quincy’s mother’s hallmark quote to detect those with a perverted weather pride. Her parents, fortunately, understood the condition of weather on a kid’s sanity. And so, every summer from the age of nine until she enrolled in college at Ann Arbor, Michigan, Quincy’s mother was sent to a summer camp for ‘gifted’ individuals on a winery in the Napa Valley studying delta-epsilon proofs to van Gogh’s Starry Night. From what flavors oak barrels gave to wines, to how wines could taste spicy, by the time she was seventeen, Quincy’s mother was also well-acquainted with this ancient libation and its aromatic path to perfection.

[shellac3: mag128]

Quincy’s parents are named Sappho Sophia Jones and Homer Chèng-Yì Chu. Both names reflect the ideals and idols their parents tacitly worship. On Sappho’s side, the privilege of naming fell on the mind of her mother who was incessantly burrowing into the lives and landscapes of historical and fictitious characters. Convinced that she was the ancient Greek poetess Sappho ‘recloaked’, as she would explain, in another form, Sappho’s mother thought the honor of bestowing her first-born with this name was the highest honor she could pay to a ‘fresh’ being. Sappho’s father, a more earthy and erudite individual, desired his daughter to be wise. So, Sappho’s mother suggested Pallas as a middle name. Sophia, was the ideal choice of a linguist major who began his publishing career as a copy-editor for bilingual dictionaries.

On Homer’s side, his father, a proud and self-righteous man, deemed it of utmost importance that his first-born son must exhibit the integrity of his own character. Chèng, coarsely translated, is ‘straight or upright’ and Yì ‘righteous’ – Chèng Yì was a proper fit for such a man of propriety. Homer’s mother, however, a shrewd soul, saw the tragic and heroic elements of the human condition clearly. The great epic of the blind poet-sage was her favorite Western tale from her studies. She understood that her little boy was an American by birth and needed a name that suited the land. She insisted that her son should have a Western name of stature. Homer was the obvious crowning title.

[shellac4: mag131]

Sappho, against the wishes of her mother-in-law, has given birth to Quincy with the aid of mid-wives in the company of friends and in the comfort of her home. Homer has been wholeheartedly supportive of Sappho’s decision which has greatly pricked Mrs. Chu’s temper. Furthermore, as long as he has been present, he has not permitted Mrs. Chu to harass Sappho with her incessant subtle comments as to how Sappho is so relaxed about keeping the home tidy or how Sappho seems to only know how to prepare countless american dishes.

Homer, after years of practice, is now able to detect and snuff out his mother’s polite, underhanded criticism seconds before Mrs. Chu would utter them. In such scenarios, he would simply say ‘Mom’ sternly to silence her. She would look shocked and indignantly exclaim ‘What!’. And he would follow with ‘Nothing’. He could tell that she was about to say something quietly devastating by the eerie silence that preceded the cutting words to follow. And if he were to miss that cue, he knew how to read Mrs. Chu’s face; it was a familiar map. Her left eyebrow would arch, ready to spring, and her eyes would dart contemptuously to the right as her already pursed lips would tighten so tautly that her cheek bones would seem to grow.