Ga Jeh’s move made her the first of us to be independent. She was done relying on Bah Ba’s money. Wouldn’t have to see him or answer his calls. When he’d come back for his annual visits, she’d keep her distance from him, staying in her room. Still, she hadn’t been a fan of lying to our father for our mother. Tell your own lies, woman, she’d thought.
When my mom discovered Ga Jeh planned to move, she took it as a betrayal. You weren’t supposed to leave your parents until you got married.
“We’re not in China,” Ga Jeh said to my mother.
“We’re not from China.” My mom slapped her chest. “We’re British. We’re from Hong Kong.”
Ga Jeh moved to a suburb south of San Francisco near her job working at the front desk of the Embassy Suites by the airport. My sister was pretty straight-laced, a square, so I was surprised when she got her first tattoo, a small one on her ankle, the Chinese character for “tiger,” her sign. The other tattoos would come later, images of tigers, one on her forearm, the other a large one on her back shoulder, reminders that she was not prey.
Ga Jeh’s room became my room. I rearranged the two dressers she left behind and moved in my stuff. The first time I slept in that room, I was jolted awake. A loud motor roared. A leaf blower outside, groundskeepers off to an early start. The noise was right outside the window next to my bed. I’d positioned my bed the same way Ga Jeh had, and I thought I understood why my sister had said that she “had to get the fuck out of there.”
Ga Jeh tells me now that it wasn’t the noise that drove her out. It was the silence, the things she could not say.
chapter 4
What’s in a Name?
林 lam
The last name that I share with Bah Ba means forest. In Chinese, it’s written as two trees side by side. The origins of the name begin three thousand years ago with the murder of a would-be father.
He was both the uncle of the emperor and his advisor, which would’ve been fine if the uncle was a yes-man, but he called it like he saw it: the emperor was a fucked-up ruler. Never concerned himself with his subjects. It was more fun to plan orgies. He needed an appropriate setting, something worthy of a true despot.
He had a large pool constructed at his palace, large enough for several canoes, and he filled the entire pool with wine. Perfect for lazy afternoons. He’d lounge in a canoe with his concubines and dip his hands in the pool to get drunk. He had a small island built in the middle of the pool, and hanging from the branches of the trees on the island were skewers of roasted meat. One-stop shop: alcohol, food, sex—all while drifting in a canoe in front of his palace. Top that, future dictators of the world!
To fund his lavish lifestyle, the emperor taxed his people heavily, and the uncle, Mr. Party Pooper, chided him for abusing his power. The uncle knew he was getting on the emperor’s last nerve, but he persisted, urging him to repent as though he believed that the emperor, his nephew, his blood, could be redeemed.
The uncle would go down in history as courageous, but I bet his pregnant wife wanted him to keep his mouth shut. His honesty was a death wish.
The emperor sent the royal guards to capture the uncle. They arrested him and, following the orders of the emperor, they ripped open the uncle’s chest and cut out his heart. The pregnant wife escaped and hid in a forest. There, alone, she held tight onto two trees as she gave birth to a son.
Years later, a new emperor came to power and restored the mother and son back into the royal family. He granted the son the surname Lam in honor of the forest that had protected them. All Lams descend from this son, but I wonder who the two trees in our name represent.
I could argue that it represents us and a future child, an explicit expectation to continue the royal lineage, to grow the forest. That sounds nice, aligning myself with royalty, but what makes more sense is that the pair of trees represent not What Will Be but What Is, us and our father. Stronger than a desire to multiply was the desire to solidify the father-son bond, for the son to swear his allegiance to his father. The Lam story did not begin with the son. It began with a soon-to-be father.
For the first Lam, the son, his name became a lifelong tribute to his father. He’d tell the Lam story to others to honor his Bah Ba’s bravery. For me, Lam has become a lifelong burden. Bah Ba and I do not simply share the same name—he exists inside mine.
狄甥 dik saang
The Chinese name Bah Ba chose for me is not an authentic Chinese name. It’s a transliteration of Dickson: Dik Saang. The first character of my name refers to an ancient general, and the second character means “nephew.” To a native speaker, these two characters combined results in an awkward phrase. My name sounds like a mistake. Perhaps my father saw no point in giving me a true Chinese name. By the time I was born, my parents had already filed the paperwork to immigrate to the States—I would be a child of America.
There were several choices my father had for the Dik character. Other words that make that same sound include the characters for “foe,” “oppose,” “wash,” “cleanse,” “enlighten,” “guide.” Instead my father used the surname of the Song dynasty warrior Dik Ching. Early in Dik’s military career, like many common soldiers, he was forced
