What is DAISING and why should you support it? I’m hoping to make a TV show inspired by my relationship with my mom and how that’s grown over the years. You can’t have growth without growing pains, but before we get into some potentially triggering trauma dump, I want to preface this with I love both my parents deeply. But that does not mean any of us are perfect people. At the time of writing this I’m 35 years old. My mom and I are finally starting to have the relationship I had hoped for my entire life— a supportive friendship. And it’s important to look back 6 years ago where I had been contemplating going no contact with her despite the strong Asian Guilt™ instilled within me. Here’s a bit of what I wrote back then:

“I am realizing the thing that triggers me the most is being yelled at/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 ungrateful daughter” when she tries to call me at work and I’m in meetings. Recently in therapy I was working through some childhood trauma about being mol*sted on a public bus in middle school and when I told her she said (to my recollection), “That’s just how the world is. It happens to everyone so what did I expect her to do about it?” I brought this incident up with her during a phone call because I wanted to be honest about why I didn’t want to see her that day. It devolved into an entire day of her frantically yelling her guilty emotions/denial at me and me crying like I was 5 years old asking her to stop yelling and just listen to me.”

I’d pretty much forgotten this had happened because currently we’re in a pretty good place. It’s interesting to me that the traumatic event wasn’t necessarily the mol*esting part, but it was the fact that when I looked to my mother for comfort I did not receive it. Having spoken to a social worker that deals specifically with Chinese families, she shares that 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 DO something but she had no idea what she COULD do. When you become a parent, no one gives you a pamphlet on what to do or say if your child is attacked.

Now here’s an excerpt from Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog, a book my husband purchased when our dog started lunging and aggressively barking at random dogs on the street:

“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. People sometimes perceive reactive behavior as aggression, but 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 as the adrenaline flows through his body. If a reactive dog learns to feel confident about something, he is less worried about that thing and therefore reacts less to it. People also sometimes perceive reactive behavior as “dominance” because they view a dog that flies at his triggers as a dog that wants to take charge. This is absolutely not the case. Reactive dogs are anxious, and the response is intense because they are freaking out.”

Do you see the similarities? This is going to be an important lesson for Jade to learn as she attempts to raise Joojai to be an upstanding citizen and it will give her insights to her relationship with her mother. Fast forward five years, here’s a miraculous breakthrough I had with my mom after years of modeling alternative forms of communication and encouraging her when I can:

“My mom and I would have 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 an awkward 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. By asking her inquisitive question, I was given the opportunity to assure her that I believed her and discover the true reason I got angry. 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. It immediately made me defensive since it was clearly untrue as she would proceed to tell me everything she supposedly “protected” me from. I wanted to spend time together and for us to get to know each other. I wanted her to listen to my CURRENT problems not rehash stuff AGAIN for the 500th time. 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 and reworded it to “Ok, I don’t know if I’ve told you this but…” A simple change of wording made all the difference and we were able to move on quickly from the topic into having fun together and doing other things than ruminate in past traumas.”

Six years ago, I never wouldn’t thought this moment was possible. My mom would often say that she is too old to change, but I’ve seen her amazing growth. The reason I love anime so much is because the stories often focuses on a growth mindset. No matter your age or the circumstances you’re born with, you too can grow to be better.

Recently I spoke with someone from Mainland China who had came to the United States to study. He lived with an American host family and he mentioned the startling difference between teaching methods. His American host family would encourage him to try, “Just try it. It’s okay if you fail.”

Versus a typical Chinese family’s method was more criticism or fear based.

“Why are you so stupid” if you mess up.
“You’ll never make a living,” because they’re concerned for your ability to take care of yourself.
“That’s it?” if you did not do the very best job (aka a 98% instead of 100%).

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 detriment of your own well-being (*cough*me*cough*), or someone that is too afraid to do anything and unable to be fully independent.

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