I was drinking tea after having a vegan dinner with Yann at In Silence Vegan Restaurant. “In Silence” is also the name of the owner and the chef. I used to have vegan meals and attend tea ceremonies there but hadn’t been there for over a year. She recently opened a new restaurant, so we decided to visit. I think she is a bit different now, or maybe I am the one who has changed.
During our chat, I learned she used to look after infants, so she has knowledge on how to educate and guide children. A mom with a two-year-old baby told us her child liked to watch Peppa Pig. But In Silence said it is better not to let children under 6 watch animations with clear-cut good and evil characters and violent plots. She recommended Teletubbies and In the Night Garden, which enable children to broaden their worldview and perspectives instead of prematurely imprinting rigid worldviews on them. Children can actually learn to judge right from wrong by themselves if provided with the right environment to learn.
I felt this was reasonable. Media shapes our psychological boundaries before we even know what a boundary is.
I reflected back on what I was watching when I was in kindergarten. I especially liked Calabash Brothers (葫芦兄弟). I even asked my father to exchange a CD set of Tom and Jerry for Calabash Brothers. I was particularly impressed by the grandpa with white hair in the series. He looked like my grandpa—kind, honest, reliable, and with completely white hair. However, today I realized that such animations unconsciously subject children to “Emotional Parentification.” Children are supposed to be protected, yet they subconsciously feel they must become the powerful ones to save those seemingly fragile elders. This instilled an excessive Savior Complex in me.
At that time, I was also touched by a fairy tale about a mother who turned into a bird and flew away because she was disappointed by her children who were careless about her. I vowed silently to myself that I would never abandon or stop caring for my parents and grandparents, as they love me and I love them. Yes, that little girl said quietly to herself. Similarly, this story now appears to carry a heavy sense of emotional blackmail and moral kidnapping. Yet, when I searched for it on WeChat recently, I found it is still being promoted as a positive tale advocating filial piety and “loving” one’s mother.
That is why the little girl tried her best to behave compliant and accommodating (乖巧懂事). She didn’t want to let her parents down, especially her mom, who looked so vulnerable and in pain. Even when she got bullied by her classmates—those naughty boys punched her and teased her every Wednesday after school on her way to her grandmother’s home—she never told her parents about it. She only confided in her grandmother, who got angry at those boys but couldn’t solve the problem. The issue was eventually solved by a report from another classmate to the head teacher.
The little girl was told at a young age that she should study hard, enter a good university, and then get a good job. That was what she wrote in her diary—found years later, the grown-up young lady smiled at the pages. Whenever she cried out loudly, she was stopped harshly by her parents: “Stop crying!” She then learned to cry silently under her covers before sleeping whenever she felt wronged and aggrieved.
Once, she wanted her mom to buy her a new sweater because some of her classmates (the vocal ones in class) had the same one. Her mom bought it for her reluctantly, thinking it wasn’t suitable for her. She was so satisfied with the sweater! But the very next day, when she got back home from school, her mom told her she had already returned it for a refund.
At that moment, she learned a cruel lesson: her feelings and thoughts were not important. She later learned from psychology books that when her mom returned the sweater and her parents harshly forced her to stop crying, it was a classic case of “Emotional Invalidation.” Her feelings were treated as unreal and irrelevant. She could only earn recognition through good grades (after the 4th grade). This “Conditional Positive Regard” directly destroyed her autonomy.
Her dad somehow respected her will when buying gifts for her. She chose a pair of roller skates for her birthday present but only chose the cheapest one. She knew her family wasn’t rich, so she wouldn’t ask for expensive things. But the idea that she wanted to be able to make her own choices about her life without others’ interruptions started to grow. She longed for autonomy.
She wanted to make her suffering mom happy, so she studied hard when she got into the 4th grade. She was rewarded with good grades and even got into one of the best middle schools! She started to have a voice in class, but she felt lost. Her mom was still not happy, though. She got hemorrhoids, and simultaneously, she felt her heart hardening. She often felt hurt for no apparent reason.
The direct consequence was that she lost connection with her own feelings and emotions. She didn’t trust her subconsciousness until she realized she needed a change. Even today, she wasn’t confident about her own creations, like this article. If anyone or AI points out suggestions and amendments, she would rush to adjust. Her first thought is always to meet the outside standards and satisfy others’ expectations.
She realized she was lost, so she started to look for what she really wanted, only to find out that her parents didn’t care about her desires at all. She didn’t like the education system, so she lost all motivation to study, and her grades dropped sharply. The head teacher called her parents to suggest sending her to a university in Japan, as she couldn’t get good grades in the Gaokao. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t even choose a sweater, remember? How could she tell her parents she wanted to do something unconventional? Her parents panicked even more about her grades and agreed to send her abroad. In the end, she made the decision to go there because she could learn the major she liked. But was it an independent choice, or just a passive escape route suggested by her teacher and forced by the external environment? She was simply drifting in a current dictated by others.
She knew it was a chance to redeem herself. So she studied hard in college. She was finally able to do what she wanted to do: collect signatures for Mother Earth, give free hugs, join local environmental activities… but what she did was not recognized by her mom. Her mom wanted her to focus more on finding a “good job.” She entered UTokyo for her graduate studies, as expected.
She wanted to study in another country like her roommates. One applied to a graduate school in the U.K., and another in Australia. They were determined about what they wanted, and perhaps more importantly, they were supported and trusted by their parents.
But she didn’t have the audacity to do so. So, she followed her senior and applied to UTokyo—a good enough graduate school, at least seemingly.
She went back to her home country after graduation, as expected (she didn’t want to work in Japan anyway), but chose to do a job she actually wanted to do—in a local NGO! Not surprisingly, it was not supported by her mom. Her father hadn’t said anything about her choice for a long time; he only expressed his ideas behind her back to his wife.
This was not a common choice. Her elder sibling and relatives even asked, “Can working in an NGO earn money?” Hard to explain. After enough struggle, she self-studied law and somehow became a lawyer a few years later. This is a seemingly more understandable job. But she doesn’t like it.
She had a boyfriend, and the relationship lasted for over 5 years, but her parents never liked the young man. Her mother said very hurting words—as vicious as she could—trying to break the relationship (she later said she might have done something wrong after her daughter really broke up, which was even more infuriating and ridiculous. It was an endless cycle of inconsistency, just like buying that sweater and then returning it). Her father made nasty remarks behind her back, but never called her names in front of her. But in the end, on a very dramatic occasion, he said he’d rather she never marry than marry that man.
She knew the relationship had its own flaws; that’s why she eventually broke up with him. But she was more brutally aware that her relationship with her parents had far more severe systemic problems: her parents were not just intervening; they were actively dismantling the life she was trying to build with her own autonomy.
They don’t understand such ideas or never think about autonomy at all. They thought she changed, that she became so rebellious, and wouldn’t behave filial and submissive anymore. They said they felt heartbroken.
Heartbroken. That should be her word. Those tears buried in the quilts in the evenings. Those efforts she made that even changed who she was. She never looked forward to marriage and an affluent life because she was never asked what kind of life she wanted to have. But wasn’t that the most important question to be asked by loved ones? Yes, she got love from local elderly people and respect from normal people because they cared about what she wanted. But thanks to her parents’ lack of imagination, she may never have the chance to receive proper love and respect from them.
So this evening, during the tea ceremony, upon hearing the child-nurturing theory, she started to realize why she had such blind love for her parents, why she had struggled so much, and why there were two parts in her body guiding her moves and decisions.
Again, this is why critical thinking, reflection, and a growth mindset are important. She still has the chance to jump out of the “destiny” of saving the grandpa like the Calabash Brothers, but they may not. This is a form of intergenerational trauma. They couldn’t give her the right kind of love because they had never been truly respected themselves. They are simply carriers of the trauma from an older era. They were left anchored in the old era and order, but she will head to the new one. She still holds a sliver of hope that one day, they might cross into this new world too.
Does this new era of true respect and autonomy really exist? She doesn’t know for sure, but it is an adventure she can only answer after she sets off. The Calabash brother is finally putting down the mountain, and the bird is taking her own flight.