VISIONS | Spring 2008
Accedence
Ho-Shia Thao
Hla dej yuav hle khau Poob teb poob chaw yuav hle hau. When you cross a river, take off your sandals. When you leave your country for another, take off your hat. It seems to be falling apart. My grandmother’s door, that is. My uncle’s frightful attempt to repaint the frame had turned it into a ghastlylooking mustard and crimson emblem of tactlessness. They had found the paint in their garage, left over from when the previous owners failed to complete their mission of beautifying the bathroom walls. It was painful to look at. Why didn’t he just paint her door brown like the rest of their Minneapolis neighbors? I feel the blood rush to my head, the usual anger that builds up whenever I think about Hmong people. Always needing to be different, always wanting to stay the same. Here, in America, people change. We forget our pasts and take up new lives. They never got the memo. I want to punch and kick at the dying door, destroy it before the kids playing ball around the corner have a chance to walk by and tease my uncle and grandma. Instead, I channel my anger at the door, picking at the frame and ripping off the poorly painted yellow bits that cling onto the cracks of the rotting wood. I throw the peels to the side of the cement stairs, kicking dirt over them, covering them until they are fully hidden beneath the darkness of the soil. I exhale in relief.
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I am there to deliver some red peppers from my mother, gifts and offerings significant of her duties as a daughter. I cringe as I lean in to press the doorbell, thinking about the potential risks involved, the small talk that I will have to force. Not to my surprise, my grandmother senses me as I see her peering through the curtains, smiling softly behind the white cross made in the glass window panes. It’ll only be five seconds now until she gets to the door. I start counting down. Five, four, three, two… “Mis nxtawg es.” She insists on calling me by the affectionate Hmong term for the youngest male in the family. That or Tub, my Hmong name that my creative parents gave me, literally meaning “son.” You’d think that my parents would have named me, their only son, something else, something grand or unique. Come to think of it, they initially had not even wanted to give my sisters and me Hmong names. However, to appease my scolding grandma, they finally caved in and gave us Hmong middle names. I’m actually relieved my name is not something like Diav or Rawg (meaning “spoon” and “fork”). My American and first name is John, but I make my friends at school call me an Americanized version of my Hmong name, Tub. That fat ceramic pool you fill with buckets of stress, troubles, and physical pain, closeted yet perfumed in the back of your house, cemented to the floor, a tub is unchanging and simple, homogenous in its function and most importantly, the same in everyone’s home. It’s not too hard to remember or pronounce and people think it’s funny. My
teachers love it. “Koj tuaj los,” my grandma continues her usual welcome. “Awm, kuv tuaj mas. My mom told me to send this to you. She thought you were running low,” I answer apathetically. English confuses my grandmother, but like always, it is hidden beneath her elderly wisdom. “Ab, why didn’t your mother come herself? Come inside Tub, come inside!” “No, it’s all right grandma. I don’t really have
However, like the peeling paint outside her door, my hopes are crushed by my grandma’s strength. the time. My mom probably wants me back at home soon.” “Tub, you know I don’t speak English. Come inside, I haven’t seen you in a while,” she lies. I was just over the other night, bringing over some lemongrass. And I know she understands my English. “No, niam tais.1 Kuv tsis muaj sijhawm lawm.” I’m refusing to go in and it suddenly becomes a tug-of-war, with me as the tightening rope. My body is half-way in the door, but with a leg and a foot outstretched into the fresh evening air, I cling onto hopes of leaving before she reveals her ulterior motive to keep me here. 1 Niam tais is the Hmong word for one’s maternal grandmother