angry

yesterday was supposed to be a fun day of family togetherness. it was eman's 34th bday, and my family had a few things planned that he didn't know about. unfortunately, as we got into my parents' car for the nearly 2 hr drive to my sister's place in charlotte, my dad and i got into an argument. well, it wasn't really an argument...i wasn't arguing. my dad was yelling at me and i just sat there and let him. but inside i was boiling. i mean...i was really livid. i tried to calm myself down...i was rationalizing the whole thing to myself in my head...1) it's eman's bday, so just shut up and don't make it worse! 2) this is dumb...it's not that big a deal...just let him yell at you 3) you don't see your dad very often and he's getting old so just let him alone. and i did leave him alone...i let him yell and didn't say a single word back. and then i forced myself to sleep in the car in hopes that i'd wake up not so angry. [and so that i could legitimately ignore my dad while he drove.] but i actually woke up even angrier. though the rest of the evening went fine, i'm still mad as i type this, and it's been almost 9 hrs.

i find that much of my anger towards my parents nowadays stem from a general overwhelming bitterness against korean culture. sad, pathetic too maybe, but true. in this instance, my dad commanded me to do something i deemed unncessary and pointless, so i asked why he wanted me to do it. that was all he needed to combust. he raised his voice, yelling, "you're just supposed to do as i tell you! you're not supposed to ask why!" which, of course, if you know me at all, is all I need to combust. my mother wisely stepped in, telling me in a more reasonable tone why they thought it was important that i do this. and after that, i did it. but it's experiences like this that build upon the anger and bitterness already stored inside me. i mean, really, i'm 32, married, and most importantly, i'm allowed to have my own opinions and ask questions if there's something i don't understand. i don't freakin' need someone else's permission to ask why. what the hell is up with the "you're supposed to/not supposed to!" shit? if he didn't want me to ever ask questions or have any other perspective aside from his own, then he shouldn't have let me get an education, much less let me live on my own all these years.

and the thing that disgusted me the most, was the hypocrisy of the matter. he was asking me to do something unnecessary in regards to a couple of relatives, yet he himself despise these relatives, and have refused to be in the same room with them for the past several years. i personally don't have any kind of relationship with them at all, and up until that moment, my dad was just fine with that. all i ever hear from my dad about these relatives are how crooked they are, and how much they've lied to him and my mom...years and years of betrayals have hardened his heart against them. yet all of a sudden i'm supposed to do this completely irrelevant thing for them and i can't even ask why? on top of that, he started lecturing me about the importance of extended family relationships! i just about threw up right in the backseat. how he could sit there and lecture me in that self-righteous tone is beyond me. and then he repeated, "i'm your father, you do as i say." i can't even begin to explain the degree of anger i felt rising within me when he said that. i honestly contemplated getting out of the car [at 60 mph] and limping back. the arrogance and hypocrisy was too much. if it wasn't eman's bday, and if we weren't in a moving vehicle, i would've let my dad have it. i had plenty to say to him. but i didn't. i swallowed it, and i forced myself asleep.

it never ceases to amaze me...the narrow-mindedness. because i'm younger, and mostly, because i'm a female, i'm supposed to shup up and obey everybody. whatever opinions i have, if they differ from the masses, [and God forbid any korean ever have an opinion that different's from what all the other koreans think] i'm supposed to keep them to myself and obey the other person anyway. i never thought i'd hear my own father say it, [up til now i've only heard it from my in-laws, and that's another story] but the last thing he yelled to me was, "you have to learn about korean culture! in korean culture, if your father tells you to do something, you don't ask why! you just do it!" now i ask you, does that sound like a culture you want to learn more about? not to me! if anything, it turns me away even more. and the other thing is, if you hold your culture in such high regard, then why not just stay in your country? why the hell immigrate to another? why raise your kids in a different land with a different culture? you can't expect your kids to inherently understand the subtleties of the parent culture if they weren't raised in it and have been living on their own away from that culture for over a decade! it doesn't make any sense!!! i mean, shit!!! is it any wonder why so many women of my generation have such a hard time with traditional parents/inlaws?!? we're not supposed to have a voice, much less a freakin' opinion!

i don't want to align myself with a culture that says i have to shut up and obey just because. just because what? i don't want to align myself with a culture that is built on a sexist heirarchy, to the point where women are discouraged from becoming individuals and where independent-minded women are viewed as "troublemakers" instead of active and viable contributors to society and culture at large. it's an insulting, narrow, and skewed way of judging us and i'm pissed that my own father [who would often laud the importance of education and independence] in his old age is ascribing to it once more.