Elaine Lui > Quotes

“Ma did not want me to grow up with envy. She didn't want me to grow up wanting what I couldn't have and, more importantly, taking what I didn't earn. Ma wanted me to learn that life wasn't easy, that the things you desire don't just appear one day on the sidewalk, waiting to be picked up, that things are never free.”
― Elaine Lui, Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir

“That’s what a bitch feng shui and fortune-telling can be. Not only do you have to follow it, you have to fucking enjoy it at the same time.”
― Elaine Lui, Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir

“however, the situation is reversed: a child can only achieve true happiness when she has successfully secured the happiness of her parents. And this has always been my ma’s position as a parent. It was also her position when she was a child. Ma’s parents weren’t particularly responsible or loving. They compromised her repeatedly. They were neglectful and unsupportive. And worse still, they showed no remorse. By Western standards, it would have been well within Ma’s rights to turn her back on her parents. To forsake them and not forgive. To abandon them without regret. But while Ma survived her ordeal and became stronger for it, finding her squawking chicken voice because of it, she continued to observe the principles of Filial Piety. She never spoke ill of her parents outside the home. She continued to play the part of dutiful first daughter. She continued to look after her five brothers and sisters without complaint. She handed over a majority of her earnings to her parents without resentment. When she married my father, she kneeled humbly before the village, in the presence of her ancestors, to thank her parents for raising her. And she kept bailing them out of trouble, over and over and over again, often at her own expense.”
― Elaine Lui, Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir