Unspoken Words Linus Lam Communicating with my parents is always a wildcard. At some point growing up, my parents started getting busy, and I stopped talking to them about my interests or feelings. Every conversation would consist of status reports on school, work, and enough small talk to fill the silence. After a while, if I did want to talk about something, there was so much to fill them in on that I'd just give up altogether. My parents didn't ask questions, and I didn't share things unprompted. So on and so forth, for the better part of a decade.
Leaving for college made me and my parents realize how little we knew about each other, which helped break the ice somewhat. College taught me a great deal about communication, but it's hard to translate that back home. We talk in Cantonese; my entire emotional vocabulary is in English. And Asian parents aren't the best with words in the first place. It took a year of texting "love you guys" to get a "love you too" back. Sometimes you just want to hear how much they care, you know?
