As a little girl, I imagined the Lazy Susans at the center of the round tables in Chinese restaurants as a wheel of fortune, a revolving stage where family dramas could be played out.
For example, my father always swooped down on the best pieces from the platters, such as the chewy heart from the steamed chicken with yellow bumpy skin, which was supposed to give me courage. He always served me before he served himself. He would stop eating his roll of beloved Lifesavers to give me the grape one because we both agreed it was the best flavor. As I grew up, not only did I return the favor, but I made sure that my dad’s small porcelain cup was never empty and always filled with fresh hot tea to accompany the tasty food that I heaped onto his rice bowl — such as sweet and sour spare ribs, honey walnut shrimp, and beef slices with bok choy. I knew the customers from the other tables deemed me as a good Chinese daughter who doted on her father; my actions speaking louder than the deafening din of diphthong Cantonese chatter.
The problem, of course, was the other family members who were left out — my mother. The omission on my part was performed on purpose, so that my father would sometimes feel embarrassed by all the attention lavished upon him and tell me to serve my mom as well. I would then do it mechanically, getting a spoonful of the dish closest to me to dump on her plate, not bothering to spin the Lazy Susan to get to the good stuff at the other side of the table. Treating her the same way I treated him would be disloyal since my mother never had any time for me. My father, on the other hand, spent time with me by reading his Chinese newspaper out in the living room where I was studying for a test at school. Meanwhile, my mother was always holed up in her room going through decades of diary entries in order to find some bone of contention to spring upon him when he was about to sleep, because that was the only time when he could no longer ignore her. This…
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