Culture Shock

We are cleared for travel. After a day of projectile vomiting and four more days of nebulizing, the doctor has given the ok for Greyson to fly on Monday. I am enormously relieved. Even though the returning flight terrifies me, it's time for me to care for Greyson in my own space. Somehow that alone will be comforting. I have also had enough of my homeland. I have had enough of the humidity and constant need for air conditioning. My son, a true San Franciscan, sweats bullets here and has not been able to adjust to the weather. I'm tired of the nosiness, pushiness and inappropriate bluntness of the people here. I'm constantly amazed by the need to blame and the need to be right that is reflected in everything here, from interactions with the locals to local television programming. The other day, I was at the pediatrician's office, and when I lifted Greyson out of his stroller, the weight of my diaper bag caused the stroller to tip backwards. A lady came to help me lift up my stroller and remove my bag. I was about to thank her when she said to me in a you-should-know-better tone, "You know, your bag is too heavy." Uh, thanks?

Today I had my first conflict with my grandmother, a woman whom my whole life, I have always felt was on my side. Greyson was crying out a nap and she concluded that I was a cruel mother to leave my child crying in a dark room when all he wanted to do was come out and play. When we finally aborted the nap and brought him out to hang out, she spent an hour telling me and anyone who would listen, in Malay (to her maid), Hokkien (to my mom and aunty), and Mandarin (to me and Greyson), that my child wasn't that sick. He was fine and that I'm just high strung. She berated me for not understanding my child. She went so far as to say that I should have given the $500.00 I spent on doctor's fees to her because Greyson wasn't as sick as I proclaim him to be. I tried explaining to her that the fussiness and crying only happens when he's lying down and the mucus and phlegm affect his breathing. As our doctor explained, bronchitis is it's worst in the night. Of course, that meant nothing to her. In true geriatric fashion, she repeated my wrongdoings as mother at least 20 times in that one hour. It was aggravating. After the two and a half weeks I've had, this was the last thing I needed and enough to push me over the edge. I didn't come halfway around the world to be criticized as a bad mother. I manage beautifully on my own. I love my grandmother, but this was a side of her I'd never experienced.

I find this a country of people who know nothing about the healing of validation. They flinch at intense emotion and bat it away quickly with a joke or a change of subject. I'm also amazed by how quickly people here jump at the opportunity to say "I told you so!", a phrase I learned in pre-marital counseling as one of the most relationship-destroying things you could say. I think I've been away from home too long. This is will be my lifelong conundrum, always feeling out of place in the places I call home. I am not 100% at home in the States, and I am not 100% at home here. I am bicultural and will always fall somewhere in between.