A High School Drop-Out's Guide to Tiger Parenting

First Impressions

I was born in the great land of the free, the country of eagles, red and white stripes, and dozens of states I still can't name if quizzed: the United States of America! The glory of my presence there, though, was short-lived, as I was soon thrown into a flight heading for China. There, I blossomed into a chunky, wild child in a span of six years by my grandparents and aunt.

The hospital that saw my wet, bald baby-head pop out for the first time was a hospital popular for its psychiatric care. I don't know if that was a harbinger of all the issues that would plague my family, dooming me straight from my birth, but I couldn't help but have an odd, eye-squinting realization when I found out. I was in a diner when the news came to me. I was enjoying a grilled cheese and fries when the conversation, as many conversations do between good friends, suddenly swerved to places of birth. I mentioned the hospital I was born at, and a friend added that she was there and experienced intense psychological treatments. That was when I realized the irony of my existence: born into a hospital specializing in psychiatric care only to suffer from parents that likely gave me a number of undiagnosed mental health issues. The more I pondered on this fact, the more it felt like it was mocking me, grinning at my misfortune and praying for my downfall. As if the simple fact that I was associated with great psychiatric care meant that I deserved not-so-great chaos birthed from different states of mind (i.e. Tiger's pleasure-driven mind, alcohol-dazed mind, anger-clouded mind).

However, these unfortunate events began only after my years in China. In China, I was shielded from parental fights and—allegedly—bloodshed, bathing in the glory of childish glee. Instead of crying about the loudness of adult voices and the crashing of metal basins, I was crying about falling off my cartoon-branded bicycle—which had training wheels, might I add—and suffering from burning scrapes, revealing raw flesh under beading blood. I never cried for long, though, as a little coaxing and a few warm hugs (on top of my head-first personality) had me running around the town square fountain in seconds.

This fountain held probably the same volume of water as the tears I would cry leaving for America, and staying in America in a family that was crumbling apart. Though, many times, it was as dry as the story of how I came to have the name I do (my parents simply didn't have one in mind, and took the first name that came out of my doctor's mouth). Besides its occasional desire to mimic a desert, the fountain was a place of role play, joyrides, and meetings, where kids and adults gathered to play. I was most definitely one of those kids, speeding up towards this fountain with my bike as my little legs worked overtime to reach the place where I would, then again, work my legs as I ran and tripped. My grandfather would chase after me with a snack—a cucumber—in hand, urging me to slow down before I hit a rock and dropped like a sack of potatoes. The cucumber was a cool relief, even more so whilst I shot my hands into the fountain water, swishing the cold liquid as the molecules rushed around my fingers. I reveled in the feeling of it caressing my hand, nearly falling headfirst in the fountain as I dangled half my body on its ledge to reach the cool relief. The crystal water sprouted from the steepled top of the white, concrete fountain, bubbling and breaking against the pool at the bottom—not before splattering and attacking whoever sat close enough to the center. Though the water was cool, the concrete which held it was hot, heated by the same sun beating down upon my cheeks. Despite the scalding intensity of the heat, the thickness of the ledge allowed my tired little legs to get some rest as I sat atop, munching on a cucumber or the occasional iceberg-shaped popsicle.

Though I'd often see the fountain under sunny daylight, sometimes, it'd rain. When it rained, it got darker, the world a little greyer in my child's eyes that saw everything in rainbows and magical sparkles. The rain would meld into the fountain water, dark spots blooming on white concrete as it absorbed the acidic torrent. The green of surrounding foliage would be even lusher when kissed by the rain, all the ground-residing insects and invertebrates finding the confidence to rise up from their cute slumber in the dirt. They sought to explore the open world with blue (gray) skies and vibrant greens, when everyone else sought to hide in their homes. That's when I'd see brown snails roaming the streets in masses, their slimy bodies slowly traversing the water-logged concrete beneath them as they made their way to wherever they were going. Even with my child's feet—which were quite big, according to my grandmother—I ran the risk of stomping on a few of them as I ran home, seeking shelter from the rain with my bike in my grandfather's hands. I would try to avoid stepping on any of the Mister and Missus Snails, though I admittedly felt crunching beneath my feet when I went home under rain. I convinced myself they were rocks, but I knew very well they were the shells of the snails I so desperately wanted to avoid partially out of disgust, cuteness, and the innate desire to preserve life.