My Neuroqueer kin
What connections could be made that I don’t yet know of?
“Ba, is your oldest sister like me?”
I ask my father about one of my aunts, his oldest younger sister, who is the only child of his family to have never attended college. She dreamt of being a fashion designer and left high school to try to chase her dreams, but was unable to achieve them due to her family’s poor rural background. In adulthood, she ran multiple run-of-the-mill small businesses to sustain her family, including two of my cousins.
I had noticed that multiple members of my father’s family had dominant, fiery personalities. The men — my father and his father — were dominant-controlling. The non-men — this aunt, and me — were dominant-rebellious. I never really knew any of my relatives, who all live in China. But perhaps I could connect with my aunt.
“She is not like you at all,” my father responds through text. She was impulsive, had poor judgment. She should have listened to her parents.
I don’t understand how these traits differentiate my aunt from me, but I stop asking. My father could only see his sister through the tainted glass of his own judgment.
“Ma, are any of my cousins like me?”
I have multiple of them, mostly younger, but one slightly older. I had heard some stories about them, but interacted with them very little, having met most of them only once, and one of them not at all. Their school lives are consummately devoted to study, such that they are unable to pursue any other interests beyond the elementary school years.
One of my cousins — the daughter of my rebellious fashion-designing aunt — was a passionate visual artist as a kid, and another cousin played the flute for a few years before she was made to quit. If there were an artist-type like me somewhere else in my family tree, they had little opportunity to know it.
“No, no one is like you,” my mother says to me. “Really?” I say, incredulous. “Yes, really.”
My mother is connected with everybody through WeChat, but she doesn’t really know our relatives either. Her conversations with them are full of small talk, which feels useless to me. Only a couple months ago did we learn that one of my aunts has the same birthday as me. If we didn’t know that, what more could we be missing about who our family members are?
“Ba, Ma, are any of my relatives weird?”
It’s the only word I can think of to encapsulate all the different social deviances I embody without triggering my parents’ wrath: queer, trans, neurodivergent, mad, even “artistic temperament.” With so many distinctive traits, I felt like one of them had to be familial. Probably the neurodivergence. I saw neurodivergence everywhere in my nuclear family, even if my parents couldn’t admit it. If we all had our social, sensory, and emotional quirks, it seemed likely that our Chinese kin included a quirky misfit among them.
“No, no one is weird,” my mother says. “Well,” says my father, “if you ask the parents of one of your cousins, they might think their child is weird. But we don’t know.”
In another conversation, I ask my mother if she has told any of my relatives about my bipolar. It could be relevant to them, I say. Some of my younger cousins are nearing the age at which my mood episodes began.
“No, of course I haven’t,” she responds angrily. “You don’t understand the cultural differences.”
I protest, feeling that the withholding of information is unjust. If one of my cousins became manic or depressed, their parents might be as callous and misunderstanding as my own parents once were. But if they knew that one of their relatives had a mental health diagnosis, might they be a bit more willing to get some help for their struggling child?
My mother asks me to shut up, so I do. I feel the pain of barely knowing my extended family, who in Chinese culture are really part of the family. I wonder if my cousins might be feeling a similar pain at not knowing their mysterious American kin, in part because our parents share very little about how our lives truly are like.
I am connected with two of my cousins through WeChat, so there is a way that I can start to get to know them, bit by bit. But my less-than-fluency in Mandarin, my nervousness and confusion around Chinese censorship of social media, my lack of familiarity with the interests and communication styles of Chinese teens and young adults, and my usual social awkwardness especially around small talk have been barriers to initiating conversations.
I do wonder though, if there is a social misfit among my relatives, how much they are pining for someone to connect with, someone who understands. Right now there seems to be no way for me to know who this person is. But I hope someday I can get to know them, and they can get to know me. We can help each other, even if no one else in our family wants to know who we truly are.
Dear Relative,
Sometimes you feel all alone, like no one can understand you. The world calls you “strange,” labels your feelings and mannerisms as “deviant” or even “wrong.” It feels challenging, or even impossible, to be a good Confucian and to be you.
I want you to know that you are not alone. I am like you. Perhaps not exactly like you, but enough that I feel you. And I care about you. I want you to be joyful and alive; I want you to live.
We are separated by oceans, but we are united in blood and spirit. Right now, cultural barriers prevent us from getting to know each other. Yet one day, I believe, we will hold hands and start to learn the dances of our souls:
What words do you use for yourself?
What is it like to be you?
What do you dream of? What are you becoming?
Whether you are older or younger than me, I hope that we will look up to and learn from each other in special kinship. But for now, know that I am wishing for the best for you, and I love you exactly as you are.
Blessings,
天涯