Macbeth wouldn’t have murdered King Duncan if he hadn’t found Scotland’s throne enticing, and Disney would have trouble bringing in the dough if millions of starry-eyed girls didn’t ooh-ahh at the iridescence of diamond tiaras and glass slippers. But to my mother, the fantasy of royalty was instead a very real nightmare. For her, being a descendant of the last king of Korea brought her only suffering.
“Young-mee-ah,” my grandmother would scold her, “you’re too fat to be the daughter of kings. Why aren’t you more beautiful?” And later: “You’re getting too pretty. Have some modesty.” That was the kindest my grandmother got. Being the daughter of kings, my mother soon realized, was worse than not being royalty at all. “You, first-born daughter, my greatest shame” was the mantra of the house. Knowing this, I approach the world thankful that I am loved.
It was music that kept my mother sane. She speaks of her memories at the piano with radiant eyes. When she touched the keys, the air melted, and she claims she could see the colors around her deepen and grow more vivid as she played. There is never a day when I do not strive to have eyes like hers.
But life is not like a piano – with clarity of sound and tender harmony between black and white. It is often gray streaked and dissonant, noisy more than musical, always favoring entropy. Whether it can be perceived as beautiful when the song comes to a close depends on the tolerance of the ear, whether the player and listener can embrace the chaos.
My mother, like many high-born daughters of that time, was forced into an arranged marriage. Her music lessons ended, and so, in a way, did her life. She became a shell of a woman, submitting to her husband’s demands: she stopped playing the piano, deserted her biological research at university to become a housewife, and became pregnant with a son, my brother.
My mother has shown me sacrifice, but she has also shown me strength. Her bravery inspires me to flex my intellectual muscles and be perpetually grateful for my freedom to do so. When her husband began to beat her, my mother packed her clothes and took her swollen belly and fled to America, “where dreams come true,” as she says still, with that same sparkle in her eyes. Her fairy tale rests not in the embrace of Prince Charming or the swish of tulle gowns but in the simplicity of her own happiness: making her own way in the world. It is a privilege that I will never forget I have.
When everyone told her she was an incompetent foreign woman, my mother taught herself English from cookbooks she salvaged from dumpsters and earned her PhD in biology. When I was told I couldn’t be a scientist because I was a girl, I remembered my mother, and strove, and still strive, to prove I can. When a woman refused to rent her apartment to my mother and called her a “crazy Chinese lady,” my mother held her head high and thanked her for her time. When kids at school taunted me for my slitted Asian eyes, I remembered my mother and how beautiful her eyes are, how much they see, and tried to open those of my mockers.
My mother’s story has not only infused me with the drive to strengthen myself, but to strengthen the voices of other women and minorities in every way possible. I am a woman who accepts and overcomes the chaos, who thrives on speaking out, sharing experiences, and pushing past societal limitations to see what shines beyond fame and fortune. I am my mother’s daughter.