The Library — audio books and how they shaped being first generation born.

I loved to read. It felt like a dirty secret. Some of my happiest times were delving through the Mississauga Library’s stacks, walking through the snaking columns and rows that towered so high you’d needed a ladder to reach the top shelves. I’d often flit from science fiction and fantasy to teens or any books that were beyond my years. When we drove there on Saturdays, we’d go through the cavernous and orange light underground parking lot. Through this deep cave we waded, my mom, my brother, and I would ascend to the main floor through a gold plated elevator. Once on the main floor, the vast tall interior was like the Emerald City, thick slabs of granite from floor to ceiling adorned the grand entrance as gentle beeps of book scanners hummed. Rays of sunshine cascaded down from the skylight, welcoming us at the gates. Here was my reprieve. We would walk through the entrance and be welcomed by the vast expanse of the largest library I’d ever seen.

Tapping her delicate silver wrist watch, my mother would look at me, “You have two hours and then we’ll meet at checkout, get a few audio books too.” It was never enough time. I’d often find myself lost through the labyrinth of shelves, sifting through books from the previous week that I’d passed on, but perhaps this week my mood would be different. Rereading the back cover and debating on if I was interested in this week. And sometimes, I’d rebel and be an extra fifteen minutes late. This would be the few times my mom would be okay with me being late. I was searching for knowledge after all, not flipping through channels on the TV. I’d circle the different sections on each floor. Sometimes, I’d stop at the children’s section to marvel at my quilt square that was patched with other kids quilt squares that we all created one Canada Day years ago. I think I got greedy and created two quilt squares, while my brother and best friend compliantly created one. It was my way of adorning the place that sheltered me from despair and loneliness. Evidence of my existence. These quilt squares were a piece of me embedded there and passersby ignorant to the creator.

Here, I had more friends and worlds to explore. Here, I perched on the hero’s shoulder, watching their every move. Here, I’d shout at them when they failed a quest. My mother would have asked them, “Why wasn’t this done right the first time.” It was something I’d often hear when she’d examine my grades. I could feel myself seethe as she scrutinized my ability to earn high marks. Earning a perfect score barely yielded a compliment. She didn’t understand that the hero’s journey wasn’t about immediate success. The beauty and joy I found in the books was the adversity and struggle against good versus evil. A simple pig keeper could find himself one day to be the high king. It filled my soul with joy. Occasionally it’d be rudely interrupted by my mother’s random remarks to me how her friend’s daughter was an overachiever and how proud her friend must’ve been of her accolades in swimming competitions or piano lessons. She was the quintessential tiger mom trying to get me to keep up. The grooming would be on stats not from sports but how well a child outperformed the other. In my mother’s own way, she thought she was trying to inspire me that others had managed such success in life. Yet what I longed for was for her to understand me or any work I had done. If you asked her what I studied most during school or any of my favorite things, it was unlikely she could tell you. It hurt that she knew about someone else’s child than she did of her own. I’d feel wave after wave of resentfulness, not of the other girl. But that I was always being compared to someone else. I know that it not true. And that my mother loved me dearly. The upbringing in an Asian household was not always one of warm affection. And I struggled with being good enough. The first generation born from a country that inherently labelled you the model minority. I was born Canadian, I love macaroni and cheese, I could sing the national anthem in both English and French. My heart beat with deep pride for a country I loved dearly and there were times I wondered did it love me back? I loved the values of the country. But are those values for everyone? The duality of being a child of immigrants born to a nation that used people like me to blast The Rockies to create the railroad that would one day join the country from one end to the other. And still we’d be dismissed or preyed upon. To further aggravate this widening chasm, is that all? They’d say as I told the school principal they made fun of my eyes or my lunch. We were blurred out. And like that blurring, I felt the deep hurt came back to me as if I were a child again. I was never good enough. The constant ridicule and assault on my nature was constant. I felt no escape. It was only when I walked through the floors of the library the world opened and drowned out each negative comment that dug into my psyche. Whether it was the tiger mom and Asian upbringing or the bullying because from classmates or the teacher that couldn’t tell me apart from the other Chinese girl in the class to the other when she told me I had already been to the paint station. I never painted that year. But the other girl painted a lot. I would think of those quilt squares in the library and hoped that same teacher would pass by as she collected books for us there. It would stare down upon her and laugh that she couldn’t tell one Asian from the next. Yes, those quilt squares were my way of showing I was a person. That I was real. When she looked upon them, would she think about who created them? Could she discern between them, tell them apart? It didn’t matter what she thought they were quilt squares made by children and that’s how anyone should have looked at it.

As an adult, I learned to cope and find subtle ways to fight. I couldn’t wield my anger in the way my counter parts did. So I did as I was expected. I’d wield the knowledge with precision and bury them with their own attempts to twist and gaslight me.

But as a child, I had to find solace in the mind and dig deeper into the world of make believe. I’d find stories in every facet of life. My mind would make up stories or songs about pets I owned. I’d live a million lifetimes through pages of books as each paragraph I consumed melted the pain that somewhere in this book a parent was proud of their child. Or through hardships, unnumbered love persevered. The hero had others they could count on. Right was right, and wrong was always wrong. I could count on my books and those worlds to pull me through the darkest times. There were stories everywhere. It was the one thing that reigned above any accomplishments that any of my mother’s words couldn’t reach. There were dozens of Asian kids that excelled at math or science. We shared the same stream as tiger parents bred tiger children. Perfection was the status quo. While I scored above my grade for math when I was in the fifth grade, my reading and comprehension had soared to high school or above. This was not impressive at all.

Often at dim sum, it was a round table of ridicule from the elders, not just my own parents but family members. Between the glutinous rice balls, radish cakes, and steamy har gow was the lunch of a thousand judgements. I knew that once dim sum was over, I’d race to my bedroom and find a magical realm one filled with wonder or if I was really in a mood one filled with darkness and there, I’d fester. Once all the books in my stash were read, I’d make a list of the books I’d search for the next time I’d go to the library. Piles of books overflowed from my arms as the librarians raised an eyebrow at a book well above my reading level. Or perhaps it was the questionable content. I kept my face stoic and neutral, hoping they wouldn’t question my choices as they waved the barcode wands across the paperbacks or hardcovers. They weren’t my parent. Who were they to tell me what I could and couldn’t read? My brain would start preparing the deduction or argument that there were no rules at the library that dictated what I could or could not read. No, I would wield this library card for good, evil, and mostly revenge. It’s not illegal for me to borrow a book and thus unlike rating levels like movies or TV shows, so it was hard for my mother to discern if the book was appropriate. I’d spend hours late into the night reading about anything I wanted and maybe learn alternative ways to say obscene words with no one knowing what I had actually said. Often, it was so unlikely someone would know the archaic old phrases that had long since fallen out of fashion. Judging by the way the characters said them. They had to be bad. And I delighted in resurrecting them from their codex and breathing life to them at my enemies. Floor after floor after floor, I’d find everything I wanted to know about sharks, sea horses, vampire lore, baby sitter’s clubs, Sweet Valley High, Carrie, Mad Magazine, cauldron born, Holden Caulfield, Middle Earth, space, love, fear, ghosts, and mummification. This place had just about everything and new books constantly being placed on the shelves.

Growing up, teachers and other parents marveled at how well spoken I was. They were deeply surprised when I opened my mouth and sounded just like them. You are so well spoken. You have no accent. My mother would revel in this knowledge. Before I could read, we’d go to the library, and she’d pick audio books for me to listen to, “listen to how they speak.” Sometimes those audio books would lull me to sleep. We’d find books of sleeping giants, or terrible beasts, ordinary princesses, whatever I wanted. I felt like my mother and I knew one another. In those books we journeyed together. But as I grew school, teachers, grades, friends, careers placed a veil on each of us with an additional layer being added year over year. I wondered if she remembered any of this. The juxtaposition of longing for me to fit in with them and yet I wasn’t really allowed to as pursuing of one’s dreams was a selfish goal that didn’t fit into the family perspective of success. And yet, that was what growing up in the western world for many of the kids was supposed to be. Follow your heart and your dreams. This constant turmoil of being true to oneself or to family or to country. Where did I fit in? Where did we all fit in? First generation born native to a country, caught between our parents and how our parents view society and how society viewed us. Belonging and not belonging at all. Being well spoken meant we were unlike our parents in that way. Yet being well spoken did not shield or stop the other ways othering takes hold.

I am a child of two worlds like many. And in that way, we belong to each other.