I used to believe that everyone had the kind of relationship with their grandparents that I did. But I’ve come to see that isn’t true. In fact, it’s relatively uncommon to have spent as much time as I did growing up with my maternal grandmother.
NaiNai’s village
My earliest memories were not so much of Nai Nai as an individual, but rather the village of family members that always surrounded her. Even as a child, I remember her hosting large gatherings of extended family. It seemed even the remotest distant cousin or relation could be sure of a warm welcome at her table.
Nai Nai herself was the mother of 7 children, so it was confusing enough for me to have to keep track of my mom's siblings when I was growing up. Then there were Nai Nai’s own siblings, cousins and distant relationships. Of course, I could never hope to keep track of how exactly family village members were all related to each other, but I could be sure of affection and kindness, wherever I ended up.
I remember going to my Great Auntie Liu Da Ju Bu’s home on Sunning Road after school sometimes. She would cut oranges in a way that made them especially delicious. Another great auntie was a third cousin twice removed - Yi Bu - and most famous for her Shanghainese wonton parties. I loved going to her flat to clean the algae off the glass in her goldfish tanks before sitting down to the feast.
Families naturally drift apart over time with a kind of innate entropy at work, as we get busy with our lives and kids grow up. And I realize now that Nai Nai’s gatherings were a kind of container for the family village, giving us a space and time together that felt familiar and bonding. Nai Nai herself has always been a cohesive energy to counteract the tendency for family members to scatter and disperse. She was always reminding us that we had shared experiences of people, places, and events that were both memorable and meaningful. Nai Nai simply loved having family around her, the more the better.
Growing up
Nai Nai’s stories were always told in a matter-of-fact way, as if she were reminding herself to count her own blessings. Reminding herself of how far she had come from the bad old days of being a wartime refugee twice, and of how lucky she was to have raised a thriving family with healthy grandchildren.
NaiNai herself has always been a cohesive energy for the family
Nai Nai’s own mother, my great grandma Tai Po, not only had bound feet, but she had borne 16 pregnancies on those tiny feet. After the birth of Nai Nai’s eldest brother, Tai Po had the misfortune of losing her next six sons to stillbirth or infant death. But when Nai Nai herself was born, she was considered to be the harbinger of good fortune, because she was a healthy baby girl. Her parents believed that their luck had finally changed, and called her by the nickname Li Di, meaning the next baby would be a boy, which of course it was.
Tai Po went on to have 8 more children, but only Nai Nai and her three brothers survived to adulthood. Nai Nai would tell of how she remembered her mother giving birth to healthy babies but then they’d get sick with fevers and die from shaking convulsions.
For the longest time, I couldn’t understand why Nai Nai herself was always out-of-control terrified whenever she got charley-horse leg cramps, as we all do. But now with my doctor hat on, I see how traumatizing it must have been for Nai Nai to grow up helplessly witnessing the deaths of each baby sibling. They had probably tragically died from febrile seizures, a familial condition that is easily treatable nowadays with fever-lowering medicines like acetaminophen.
Nai Nai was home-schooled with her siblings and cousins by a tutor, but unlike her brothers, she was never allowed to go to school or to travel. Families were not willing to ‘waste money’ educating girls in those days, seeing no benefit in making such an investment when they were to be married off anyway. She remained quite bitter about this chauvinistic injury for the rest of her life, fiercely championing the education of her own daughters and girls in the family.
Nai Nai remembered running from explosives in the streets of Shanghai during the war with the Japanese in the 1930s. At the tender age of 18, her parents married her off to a promising young engineer at the factory Cha Chi Ming (Gung Gung) in order to keep her safe and protected. But she saw it as nothing less than exile—she went from being a pampered princess in her father’s modern Shanghai court to a factory wife in the backwater of Chongqing.
NaiNai taught me that I was capable of achieving whatever I wanted
She told of her horror at finding her new quarters to be infested with fleas upon arrival. Nai Nai lost her first baby to fever and convulsions, having no access to modern medicines in the countryside during wartime. One can only imagine her heartbreak and loneliness, going through such hardship so far from home.
But she proved to be a survivor, learning the art of making do from her new mother-in-law (my great grandma Cha, Tai Tai). Nai Nai went on to bear 7 healthy babies, contriving to stretch and strain resources even as they moved back to Shanghai, only to flee again to Hong Kong in the 1940s. I loved hearing about how she had to figure out how to milk the goat to feed her babies when the wet nurse’s milk dried up, and how they saved and scrimped fabric to make new outfits and shoes for each family member from scratch every year for Chinese New Year.
Nai Nai in my corner
My own childhood was spent hanging out with Nai Nai at her home in Hong Kong, watching her endlessly sort and tidy stuff, helping her to inventory her ink art scrolls and sometimes sitting with her visitors, to whom she was unfailingly courteous and generous.
I was a shy and awkward child. But I was irresistibly drawn to Nai Nai’s energy and warmth. She was constantly teaching me new things: how to roll up this scroll, how to cook this or that dish, or how to judge the quality of fabric. Her hands were always busy with what needed to be done and she was perpetually trying to improve her English, getting me to help her with pronunciation.
Way back in primary school when I decided I wanted to be a doctor, my parents could only laugh at my ambition. My mom consoled me that I might one day marry a doctor, but Nai Nai quietly taught me that I was capable of achieving whatever I wanted. I didn’t realize until much later that her attendance at my medical school graduation must have been a triumphant moment.
Nai Nai simply loved having family around her, the more the better.
I remember that Nai Nai once gifted me a swanky leather jacket that seemed totally out of sync with anything else that I owned or would wear. At the time, I was teaching at the University of Washington and a working mom. It just boggled my mind that she thought I would ever have occasion to wear it. But of course I kept it, because it was from her. It’s taken more than 25 years, but I’ve recently started wearing it. I don’t know how, but I realize now that she must have seen my younger self eventually growing into a stylish and elegant woman. Or perhaps I’ve finally got to a place where I feel worthy of her regard.
Nai Nai never went to school, but she had so much to teach me and I’m forever grateful for the time that I got to spend with her.
She taught me to appreciate that there is beauty in each moment, wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
She taught me about the nature of caring and compassion, authenticity, and respect.
Her love and guidance has profoundly shaped who I am today, and I see how it’s my turn to support our village as best I can.
Dr Em coaching tips
Did you or do you have special relationships with elders in your life? Why or why not?
Families (and humans in general) are inevitably complicated and messy sometimes. What do you believe about your own family and your ability to create the kinds of relationships you want?
Have you ever had someone in your life see you as being different than how you see yourself? Is it possible they are right? Why do you think you have trouble aligning their vision of you with your own view of yourself?
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