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Taiwan Diary: Aunties Everywhere
Dec. 15th, 2022 08:37 pmI like to think I'm a bit of a badass, but the truth is, I seem to bring out the Auntie in everyone. I might have mentioned Sue at work who tried to give me a too-small coat last week and was baffled to find me sitting at my desk with my fan on high. Today, Jane, another coworker, got very Chinese Auntie on me. She came back to the teacher workroom with paperwork for some of the lads and stopped to chat. She immediately got a concerned look and asked me what was wrong. I'm just tired. It's the end of the quarter, the last day before Christmas break, the world is The Way It Is, and I started my period. Of COURSE I'm tired! She then asked me if I was sleeping well, and since I was tired (despite having three venti lattes), I replied honestly. No. I never sleep well. This was the WRONG answer because now Jane is WORRIED. She started telling me she helped her mother get lavender oil because it's soothing, and then she told me to try some sort of acupressure thing. To pinch my earlobe in a certain spot. Then she came around my desk and started pinching my ear!
It's very sweet and deeply weird to me. I know Americans have a reputation for gregariousness, but I very much do not like people touching me or worrying about me. It's sweet but it's also a lot. She said that she would bring some sort of seed (she couldn't really think of the proper English translation, so I have no idea what's coming) that I can poke into my earlobe. IDK.
Despite feeling weird about it, I am taking her concern in the spirit it's intended. I just think it's hilarious that I, of all my coworkers, seem to engender this specific sort of concern. Not even my friend Sounia, who is almost young enough to be my daughter, is mothered this much. Except by Ms. Mayi, but Ms. Mayi is the only one who mothers everyone on staff. And it's not just my coworkers who turn all Auntie. The doorman at my building was very concerned when I came home LATE and had no coat! As if I, a naive foreigner, did not know that it was now WINTER. (He wasn't at all patronizing about it. He really was quite concerned, and I found it very touching.)
Anyway, tomorrow is gonna be a bit of a shitshow due to general pre-holiday zaniness, but I don't think it will be that much weirder than any other day-before-a-break I've ever worked. I just hope there are no more earthquakes for a while. I did NOT enjoy today's shakin'.
It's very sweet and deeply weird to me. I know Americans have a reputation for gregariousness, but I very much do not like people touching me or worrying about me. It's sweet but it's also a lot. She said that she would bring some sort of seed (she couldn't really think of the proper English translation, so I have no idea what's coming) that I can poke into my earlobe. IDK.
Despite feeling weird about it, I am taking her concern in the spirit it's intended. I just think it's hilarious that I, of all my coworkers, seem to engender this specific sort of concern. Not even my friend Sounia, who is almost young enough to be my daughter, is mothered this much. Except by Ms. Mayi, but Ms. Mayi is the only one who mothers everyone on staff. And it's not just my coworkers who turn all Auntie. The doorman at my building was very concerned when I came home LATE and had no coat! As if I, a naive foreigner, did not know that it was now WINTER. (He wasn't at all patronizing about it. He really was quite concerned, and I found it very touching.)
Anyway, tomorrow is gonna be a bit of a shitshow due to general pre-holiday zaniness, but I don't think it will be that much weirder than any other day-before-a-break I've ever worked. I just hope there are no more earthquakes for a while. I did NOT enjoy today's shakin'.
