Kiss me, I'm Irish-ish

The schoolyard fight between China and Ireland that I started

I have a love/hate relationship with St. Patrick’s Day. This year I felt fairly “meh,” about it since A) pregnancy will do that to you and B) it was difficult to top last year’s Dropkick Murphy’s concert in Boston.

But the love/hate goes back, way back to elementary school when we were forced “bring our heritage to school” in various Tupperware containers or splayed across neon bristol boards. One week, our teacher asked us to bring in one dish that represented our ancestral country.

“Flied Liiiice Courtney?” A boy behind me whispered.

“Ew,” I snapped back. “I hate that stuff. We don’t even eat that at home.”

The night before the big event, I asked my dad if he knew any Irish recipes. My father was born in China, but his parents immigrated to Toronto when he was two. He’s never been back since, so he speaks English as if it was his first language. But like myself, he will always be Chinese to a pair of strangers’ eyes.

“Hm, no, but I can look one up?"

“Does Mom know any?”

“Honestly, I don’t think so.”

“Nanny?”

I was desperate. My Irish grandmother (Nanny) lived downtown, almost an hour away. Plus, the only time I witnessed her cook, she microwaved raw ground beef, and mixed it with packaged gravy powder and Guinness. (It made a surprisingly not-terrible meatloaf.) My mom was closer, about a ten-minute drive away, but we only had about an hour to cook, do homework and get to bed.

After finding out corned beef and cabbage took almost 24 hours to brine, my dad retrieved his wok and wiped a tear from my eye. He made a delicious pork fried rice, which I begrudgingly brought in the next morning. The teasing boy from class smirked at me before gobbling it all up.

Some iteration of this discomfort blooms every March 17th. Since 2016, I’ve been to Ireland twice, with another trip coming up in May. My guard goes up and down like a car window when I think about it, the smell of fried rice lingering in some distant room.

My first visit to Bangor, Northern Ireland, where my grandmother was born and raised.

When I was a pre-teen I started to hide my adoration for Irish folk music, too exhausted to explain my family tree to every Colm, Kelly and Saoirse who prodded. It was easier to consume my Enya and Clannad CDs in private. And then, in late high school, St. Patrick’s Day had a resurgence with my peers (likely due to the fact that drinking age was inching closer). Feeling bold, I spent my allowance at Spencer’s Gifts on shirts with beers over my “jugs” and some version of “Kiss Me I’m (trying to prove myself)” shirt. One year I painted shamrocks on the outside corner of my eyes and wore every damn shamrock my Nanny bought me over the years.

Later at a party, a very obviously Irish boy loudly proclaimed that this holiday was “bullshit now,” “another hallmark holiday ruined by the masses wearing ugly green and stupid shamrocks.” He might not have been talking about me exactly, but all six of my shamrocks burned on my skin. My inner pride and patriotism felt displaced from my human edifice. After that, I again slipped into indifference about March 17th. I tossed the t-shirts and skipped the parties. I knew I needed kelly green and shamrock necklaces to signal to people I was invested in this day, but I didn’t want to feel more like a fraud than I already did. I stopped asking my Nanny for stories about Ireland. I replaced Enya with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and other trendy bands that made for easier party banter.

During this time, I thought a lot about why I clung so hard to my Irish heritage. After all, Nanny left when she was a teenager, and repeatedly told us how horrible it was for her there. She was raised by her strict grandparents in Northern Ireland between the 30s and the 50s. She never really knew who her mother was, and her grandparents refused to tell her. One time, I saw her run for cover under her dining room table when thunder struck. She later admitted it reminded her of a bombing from her childhood. We once asked if she wanted her ashes spread somewhere beautiful like Ireland and she replied: “not that god-forsaken place, dear god please no.”

I also thought a lot about why my obsession was there in the first place. Unlike my mom’s side, my dad’s family is huge. We have cousins, aunts, uncles, and “aunties” and “uncles” who all speak Chinese perfectly. Many of them visited during our childhood, including my grandparents who were very much alive for my entire life up until my mid-twenties. Even though their English wasn’t great, I didn’t really try that hard to ask them questions about where we were from. And that definitely doesn’t excuse me from asking my very capable aunts and uncles about their time in China.

I’ve self-diagnosed my issue. I am racist. In wanting so badly to find a box I can fit myself in, I’ve built up a golden wall around being Irish, one so elusive and bright, even I feel unworthy of it. Being Irish is easy, people can picture it (fondly) when you say you’re from there, it’s (mostly) English-speaking, and the land is where fairy tales are made. China is where villains are born, where accents were mocked, where pandemics start, and where food is looked at with disgust. In Ireland, quaint traditions collide in cozy taverns. Descendants from the potato famine have assimilated into white America with relative ease (especially if those Irish immigrants married white partners).

The rhetoric around Chinese culture is less kind— it always has been. In America, we went from being feared with the Chinese Exclusion Act, to being really feared as job stealers since the model minority myth. Chinese people were and are depicted as infiltrators, really only acceptable as successful doctors or “exotic,” subservient women. Asian women in Hollywood are still only seen through these narrow lenses: The hardworking, laundromat-owning mother, or the silky* heiress/fashionista.

*I just watched Reese Witherspoon’s newest rom-com and was so excited to see there was an Asian supporting actress. Within seconds of meeting her, Reese refers to her as “silky.” Barf, Reese.

In Spain one St. Patties at just one bar, strangers guessed if I was Japanese, Korean, Romanian, or Pacific Islander among others. After claiming I was part Irish with pride, one patron made me list all the counties in the country.

We’re so often reduced to a Sherlock Holmes inquisition. What parent is from where again? What part of you is from what country? Cells 129953882 are from X! Cells 3872562384 are from Y! 45% South Chinese, 30% Irish, 8% Danish, and 100% owned by a tech company. Can I be divided up like a pig in a butcher shop? You have your mother’s eyes, your father’s ears, your great-grandmother’s pubic hair. Are you mixed? Oh, a mutt! Colonized and colonizer. You’re half this, a quarter that, fully —nothing.

I’m embarking on a part of my writing journey where everything comes down to a pitch, to an elevator’s ride-length amount of time to sum up my story, my identity. The complexities of being from multiple backgrounds get shaved down to a nub. You’re asked to map your family tree on the back of a business card. Even the term “Asian American” or AAPI writer isn’t exactly correct when referring to me, but I feel stupid when I type out: “Canadian, Quasi-American, Green Card Alien, Half-Chinese, Irish-ish.” So, with medical paperwork or grant applications, I conform to the next best available option: Other. (Unless I’m feeling feisty and draw in a “fuck this” box.)

Last April, I managed to track down my grandmother’s mysterious mother. We now have a name that spreads the roots of our family tree a little deeper. I found my great-great grandfather’s grave and stood on top of it, waiting to feel something. Is this why so many of us mixed kids feel the urge to trace our roots? Do I cling to the breadcrumbs sprinkled in my DNA in order to make mountains out of my freckled moles? To prove to the world I am more than the slope of my face?

I’d love to be able to hold Lunar New Year and St. Patrick’s Day in one hand without feeling like I’m about to topple over. I want to be able to step into both worlds, both countries, without needing permission. My family and I are doing this slowly, trying to cling to traditions that are fading on both sides. This March, we made a huge vat of Irish stew and served it to our friends.

Honestly? I prefer fried rice.

Anyways, I’ll see you in the Dropkick mosh pit next year.