What is «DAISING» and why should you support it? «DAISING» is a TV show inspired by my relationship with my mom. About how I went from almost going no contact with her despite the deep Asian Guilt™ to finally achieving the supportive friendship I think everyone yearns for with their parents. «DAISING» is about how that change and growth is possible, regardless of your age or upbringing.

Let me tell you a bit about my journey, but before we get into a mini-trauma dump, I want to preface this with I love both my parents deeply. It’s been so nice lately that I had forgotten where I was six years ago. Here’s a recollection of those times:

“I am realizing the thing that triggers me the most is being yelled at or blamed for something that isn’t my fault. Yelled at for crying at my birthday party when a boy punched me. Yelled at for getting sick. Yelled at for “Why didn’t you pick up your phone. You never pick up my calls, you ungrateful daughter” when I was in a work meeting. Recently in therapy I was working through some childhood trauma regarding being mol*sted on a public bus in middle school. When I went home that day I tried to tell my mom but what I got back was her yelling, “That’s just how the world is. It happens to everyone so what do you expect me to do?”

I had tried to bring this incident up to her to seek closure but it devolved into an entire day of her frantically yelling her guilty emotions at me, denying this ever happened and me crying like I was 5 years old asking her to stop yelling and just listen to me.

Looking back now, it’s interesting to me the traumatic event wasn’t necessarily the mol*sting part, but the fact that when I looked to my mother for comfort, I did not receive it. Bad things happen in life and unfortunately sometimes there are no solutions. You can’t always fix it. But having someone there to simply support you and comfort you. I think that is just what we all need.

I interviewed mental health workers while researching for this project and I learned that parents, especially Chinese parents, often snap or lash out when they are overwhelmed, scared and don’t know what to do. That gives a lot of context to this moment. Child-me was frantic. I wanted her to FIX it but she had no idea what she COULD do. When you become a parent, no one gives you an instruction manual. Back then, she was a single parent struggling to pay the bills with an emotionally abusive ex-husband and a family she couldn’t turn to with her troubles. Unable to deal with the added emotional distress of her child, she snapped.

That reaction reminded me of a book my husband has been reading about reactivity in dogs:

“What is reactivity? Reactivity comes from anxiety, which comes from feeling uncertain about something. Reactivity is an information-seeking strategy. A reactive dog will rush toward something or someone that he is uncertain about, barking, lunging, growling, and making a big display… a reactive dog is not rushing in to do damage; he is attempting to assess the threat level of a given situation. His assessment strategy is intensified because he is panicking...If a reactive dog learns to feel confident about something, he is less worried about that thing and therefore reacts less to it. ” - Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog

Do you see the similarities? This is going to be an important lesson Jade learns in the show as she attempts to raise Joojai to be an upstanding citizen. The insights she gains from that process will help her empathize with her mother, and develop the communication skills she’ll need to stop them from falling into the same bad patterns.

Dog training books often talk about positive reinforcement vs negative reinforcement. I, along with friends from China that studied abroad, have observed positive reinforcement teaching methods in Western families. For example a parent telling their kids to “Just try. It’s okay if you fail.”

Asian parents generally default to negative reinforcement, using fear as a motivation.

"Why are you so stupid?" if you fail or mess up a little
"Why are you so lazy?" because they want you to do better in school
"That's it?" when you get 98% out of 100%, as their way of encouraging you to do better
"You'll never make a living" because they're concerned for your future and wellbeing

Personally, I believe these reactions destroy confidence and do not create a safe environment where you want to try new things because you become afraid of failure or criticism. It will either create a person that constantly aims to overachieve + seek external validation even at the cost of their own well-being *cough*me*cough*, or someone that is too afraid to do anything therefore unable to become fully independent.

So after many years of modeling different behaviors for my mom, trying to use as much positive reinforcement as I could, here’s an example of a miraculous breakthrough we’ve had:

“We’ve had this recurring fight for over 20 years. Mom would start ranting about how terrible a husband my dad was, I would get frustrated, try to disengage, she’d get angry. Rinse and repeat. One day, instead of allowing the conversation to die into a tense silence, mom finally asked “Why do you always get angry when I talk about this? I feel like you blame me for the divorce.”

This approach pushed me to consider why I got upset, and helped me realize that the reason my mom went so hard in saying all those things was because she felt she had to justify herself. She felt she needed to convince me due to her assumption that I blamed her. By calmly asking her questions, I was given the opportunity to make her feel heard and discover the true reason for my own anger. It was because she’d always start the rant with, “You don’t even know, I protected you from all this.”

Which was 100% INCORRECT. That phrase immediately made me defensive because after saying those words she would proceed to re-tell me all the things she “protected” me from. I didn’t want to rehash old traumas again, I wanted her to get to know me. I wanted her to listen.

Now that we were able to identify what was bothering us, the next time my mom got started on an Anti-Dad rant, she started to stay, “You don’t even know” but stopped herself! Then reworded it to, “Ok, I don’t know if I’ve told you this but…” A simple change of wording made all the difference. We were able to quickly move onto having fun together instead of ruminating in the past.”

Six years ago, I never would’ve thought this moment was possible. My mom often said she was too old to change, but I’ve seen her amazing growth. What better format to tell this story of growth than in an anime, where so many of the stories focus on a growth mindset. No matter your age or the circumstances you’re born into, you too can grow to be better.

Not everyone will have access to a good therapist or experience culturally diverse family dynamics to learn new ways of communication, so I hope by putting these different examples into a fun, action comedy anime, viewers can learn, laugh and grow with me.

If this resonated with you and you’d like to see this type of storytelling play out in an animated TV series, please help us: