Parents.
It wasn't too long ago when it is still a must for me to 'listen to my parents'. Now:At BWI airport. Chinese take-out stall.
Dad: Give me the Shanghai Lo Mein lah!
Server: ???
Dad: (Looks at me intently) HUH?
Me: He wants Shanghai Lo Mein for here.
Server: Chicken or pork?
Dad: (Looks at me intently) HUH?
Me: 你要雞定係豬肉呀?
Dad: 雞啦!
Me: Chicken.
(Abridged...)
(Er - I thought he can use English pretty well. Until that day...)
Some time during the trip.
(For simplicity translated into English.)
Me: Let me know what do you guys want to see! (I feel bad always dragging them around and not asking for opinion.)
Mum: Go ahead and see what you want to see - we will just follow. We will be happy as long as we see you and we don't care what else we see.
(Like that also can - I am not surprised if they completely have no idea where they will be 12 hours later at any moment, despite I have already sent them the itinerary well in advance...)
A couple of days later I talked to my sister - she was telling me that they are like that even in Hong Kong. My sister has always been in charge of ordering food when they visit...! It is not only because they are not used to the American way of doing things...!
In some sense they are becoming less and less independent and confident - especially my dad. You should see how uptight he was on the day when they were supposed to go to Vancouver on their own because my flight to Baltimore was a couple of hours earlier. 22 years ago my mum survived for a couple of weeks with me in America with rather bad English, just like how I survived France and Peru and Germany now - and now they needed me to feel secure in a place they have visited so many times before.
不想長大? 要不想都不行. Reality speaks itself - unless all these is just a dream.
