You mentioned that your father was by accident absent from your family. Do you mind talking about this?
Not at all. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. When my mother found out she was pregnant. She wasn't even really in a relationship with my father. She didn't even know that she was pregnant until, of course, she started getting fat or something or missing her menstruation cycle. She didn't even know who the father was until I was born. So I think that's the case.
Anyway, she never told him, he didn't know. And even if he would have known, I don't think she wanted him to know because it wasn't meant to be a relationship. At that point in his life, he wasn’t relationship material. He had his own problems like… his father had died, so he was struggling with that and he was dealing with a lot of drug abuse. And he was a high school dropout. He never finished high school, so he was just not maybe the kind of person that she wanted around.
So does he now know of your existence?
Yeah, I met him. I reached out to him when I was 16, but we grew up in a small community. And so I think he found out about me maybe when I was 2 or 3 years old. He was visiting a neighbor's house, a mutual friend of my mom and his. And then he saw me and he
did the math（斟酌、合计）
. He realized that I was likely his son. But because my mom kept it private from him, you know, he just kept his distance. And I believe, I think he told me, I walked past him one day, I think. My brother told me one time we're just walking down the street, he was walking one way, I was walking the other and I walked past them without realizing it. He realized it but again, he just kept his distance.
So you and your brother, your big brother are from the same man？
No, you can see it in the photo he looks kind of different from me. He doesn’t look Asian at all. Yeah, so he's my older brother. So there's a different father.
So your mother was never married. How courageous your mother was to have two babies without getting married! And in a small community there would be rumors all over, right?
Yeah, I guess she's a bit of a pioneer in that regard. Yeah, that wasn't too common for women to do. I guess it was the 1970s. Things are changing.
So when I asked her about it not too long ago, I asked, why didn't you just
abort (堕胎
) us, wouldn’t your life be easier if you didn't decide to have children?
She said by the time she found out she was pregnant, it would have been too late for that. Anyway, not that it was an option or that she considered it, but in both cases, she didn't realize that she was pregnant and I guess having a life grow inside of you, I guess she just has that caring nature to let it grow.
So you and your brother grew up without a father at all？
Yeah. No male influence. Nobody to teach us how to tie a tie or shave or talk to women or anything like that, nothing at all. I shouldn't say "nothing at all". My mom did have several brothers. So they were like our male role models, but they weren't like around that much. Sometimes they would help and take care of us. Generally we kind of just grew up there under the feminine influence.
A lot of people mistake me for being gay because of the habits that I’ve adopted from my mother like body language habits, maybe the way I smoke a cigarette or the way I sit across my legs or whatever, any of these traits that I’ve picked up simply from her, people mistake for like I want to be a woman. I’ve thought about it. I think no. It doesn't appeal to me like men do not interest me. So I’m pretty sure.
How's your brother now? He's still in Canada?
Yeah, he lives in
Vancouver (温哥华)
. Quite far away from our community. Like China, Canada is a large and vast land. He lives on the west coast. He has two daughters. Unsurprisingly, I guess, two different mothers. But surprisingly, he's kept the relationship with the mother of the second daughter. She is maybe ten years old now.
Why do you use the word "surprisingly"? Do you want to say you’re surprised that he stays in the relationship, in the marriage?
Yeah, that's the surprising part. They're not married, but they're still together. I'm surprised because generally, like my mom, she never really developed any relationship habits. And same goes for most of her brothers and sisters. None of their relationships have lasted. Maybe they'll have kids from those relationships, but it's just a cycle that's been passed down through generations, getting involved in relationships and staying in them seems to be a difficult task for people like us.
But you planned to get married.
I plan to get married. I guess I could be breaking the circle too, but other people have gotten married too. It doesn't mean I'm gonna stay married. Sometimes I actually have
second thoughts (改变主意，再想想)
about it. I have doubts about my marriage. I think, is this person really the right one? My question, my judgment. He's been in a relationship for a while. And like I said, they're still not married. I don't know if they ever will get married. The youngest uncle of my mom's six other siblings, actually, he's been married more than once, but his most recent wife they've been married for a while, maybe eight years now. So relationships are not very good for us.
Do you mean your mother's experience of raising you alone has had a very big impact on how you reckon relationship and marriage?
Sure, without the influence of a father, like I said, teach me how to shave or catch a ball or anything like that. Also, all those life lessons about how to maintain a healthy relationship, or how to have a relationship, or the trials and errors of managing any sort of relationship. So I missed out on any of those steps that I would have learned consciously or subconsciously. But it goes back to her parents, too, where they divorced and broke up and separated. I think that had an effect on her and all of her brothers and one sister as well. Without that being modeled for us, how are we really gonna learn? From Hollywood and television? Not very likely.
