Panda Gifts Chapter 1 Part 2

From Taipei to Queens to Mt. Vernon

When Dad left for the United States, Mom and I moved back in with her parents. I’m sure Mom was very good at taking care of newborn me. In her care, babies have always clean and well fed. Mom was terrified of little bare feet and little bare heads. She was afraid naked babies would get sick. She hated dried mucous on noses and she hated dirty cheeks. She nursed me and wiped and washed me and waited for aerogrammes from her husband. In 1964, when I was less than a year old, Mom finally got an urgent telegram from Dad asking her to join him in New York.  After the telegram, he sent her a one way plane ticket. Dad told her that work was easy to find in New York and that they could send their US dollars to my grandparents to help with my upkeep and to feed the many hungry young Wus in Mom’s family. Without hesitation, Mom decided to go. She probably felt like she had no choice. Her parents were struggling on my grandfather’s meager salary: she needed to put food on their table. Before her departure, she had to wean me fast so she rubbed hot pepper sauce on her nipples. I went for the hot pepper coated nipple once, got burned, and because I was “a good baby,” I gave up on mother’s milk right away. A ten month old baby has a powerful biological connection to a mother and a mother’s attachment to the physical child at that point is terrifyingly intense. The promise of America, however and the call of her husband were both more powerful than my need for her and her need for me.