My brother tells me to have some humility,
and I know this is an old Chinese standard
talking, or like my father says, women were
once judged for marriage based on their manners
at the dinner table, meaning a silent bride
is best: Be quiet. Compliment his mother’s
cooking. Eat your whole bowl of rice.
And my brother gets away with playing
“nice guy,” as in “Look at that nice guy
teaching his rude sister proper manners,”
because Chinese boys and Chinese girls
are never treated the same way—think of
those girls born in the Year of the Tiger
deemed too aggressive, or how my family
fortune teller screwed me over at birth
by giving my parents the wrong fortune.
Of course, there’s a beauty to not knowing
and letting life play out. Of course, my brother’s
was right down to a T: the failed first marriage,
the second marriage to a medical researcher
posing as the perfect Chinese wife, a little
too eager to cook meals, a little too eager
to don a wedding gown, a little too eager
to call him “honey.” A little too eager
to put me down at the dinner table in Vegas
when I order the salmon and she orders
the lobster, and she turns to my brother,
saying, “Your sister is too big of a spender.”
But forget manners. I’ll order the lobster
next time. Throw in French fries and a strawberry
mousse—take it to go, pay for my own
goddamn meal, because I don’t need
anything from anyone. No, I don’t
have a fortune, and it’s because no one
controls me. I think about the way a lover
tells me I look good in red, and I remember
the red slips and fishnets underneath peacoats
in college in those Ithaca winters, feeling like
the most powerful woman alive, and forget
humility. My brother fears me. His wife fears me.
I’ve got the goods to show off. In what universe
does a woman like me eat her rice in silence.
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