Today's Speaker

 Today the Literary Ladies enjoyed an end-of the year lunch at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the lake.  We also had a guest speaker, a young woman from China.   It was a very fascinating talk, disturbing, and heartbreaking.  She spoke about her own personal experiences growing up in China, and in her family.  Let’s call her Lin-Lin. 

Lin Lin is an accomplished scholar, having earned a Bachelor’s Degree in China, two Masters degrees in the U.S., a  PhD from Harvard, plus having recently published a book.  Ironically, she has her degrees in Women’s Studies, Cultural Studies, and is highly educated in all gender related issues.  And yet, she has not been able to “liberate herself” from the strong indoctrination and brainwashing of her culture, mostly from her mother.  Hers was (perhaps is) a patriarchal culture, teaching that girls are always inferior. She grew up sensing that her mother had shame for giving birth to two daughters.   Lin Lin decided that she would bring honor to her parents by excelling academically, which she did to the highest level possible.  They are proud of her academic achievements, but ashamed because she does not have a man to buy her a house.  (It is meaningless to her mother that she is able to buy the house for herself!).  Lin Lin is not married, and her mother is ashamed of her for that.

It was fascinating to hear her describe her journey as one always filled with the tension and conflict between the core beliefs taught by her parents, and the new knowledge she has acquired from her extensive education. There are surely some pleasures from her many accomplishments, and yet, no matter what she does, she can never seem to get her parents’ approval.  When Lin Lin became a tenured faculty member, she brought her parents here to live with her.    

I listened with sadness and with amazement.  No matter who we might be, or how old, or from what country, with what education,  perhaps many women share a common challenge.  For better, or for worse, we simply cannot entirely erase the tapes of our mothers’ voices from our heads!

For Lin Lin,  there is no relief in sight!   Her mother lives with her!