In Praise of Older (and Younger) Brothers

A Gender Twist for Women's History Month

By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, IMDiversity.com Asian American Village Acting Editor

March 2008 - The other night, as we snuggled into the covers to go to sleep, my four-year-old son, “Little Brother,” burst into tears with worry about how he will learn to "snip his whiskers" when he grows up so that he will not grow a beard. I tried to reassure him that we are a team, we have lots of friends, and that together there is not anything we cannot learn how to do.

That Friday night, I took him around to all the high school Older Brothers at Chinese School who promised to teach him how, in Mandarin, “to scrape his beard” when the time comes. Don’t worry, Little Brother, we have got you covered.

The high school girls at Chinese School, of course, laughed mercilessly at the thought of these pimply, smooth-faced Chinese boys knowing anything about shaving their two measly whiskers, but the high school boys remained undaunted and proud.

There was something honest and true about that unrestrained laughter ricocheting through the Chinese School hallways that testified to the unbreakable ties of family and life-long friendship. So although it may seem a bit odd to be writing in praise of our Asian Pacific American (APA) Brothers for Women’s History Month, especially after so many years of my writing about the incredibly beautiful and dynamic APA Sisters among us, I feel I have come full circle in my relationship with our beautiful APA Brothers in a way that makes us all whole (and not just in a shallow lusty aesthetic way like in “Weak in the Knees: Revisiting the Nice Chinese Boy,’” although that is certainly a big part of it, too!).

In Search of an Older Brother

When I was a little girl, I constantly asked my mother for an Older Brother (I was a little slow in figuring out how these things worked). I so wanted someone just a little bit older and wiser and taller to look out for me and help point the way (or at least the general direction) so that I did not have to figure absolutely everything out on my own (which I did with The World Book Encyclopedia).

In college, I discovered the hard way that calling someone “Older Brother,” as my parents’ generation had, was, for me, the kiss of death for any romantic possibility. I remember the tall and handsome Vice President of the UC Berkeley Honor Society, who was also in my third-year Mandarin class, shrinking and fading before my eyes from the very first (completely accidental!) “Hello Older Brother Lin.”

In recent years, as I spent more time with my four children’s four schools and Parent Teacher Organizations (PTOs), I found that I quite naturally befriended mostly women, primarily women of color. Other than the principal of the elementary school and the principal of the Chinese School, I almost never talked to men. I certainly never casually touched or hugged men. Because everyone was married and many were Asian or Arab American, it did not feel proper, and then it became habit. I did not know if it was a cultural thing or a PTO mom thing, but I did not care. Who wants to talk to boring balding middle-aged men anyways when one could be talking to fabulous vivacious multitasking (mostly APA) Older Sisters with so much more to teach me?

In fact, my children completely freak out every time we run into my one (Caucasian) male friend from grad school days who kisses me on both cheeks European style, “EWWW! DID HE JUST KISS YOU?!!”

Older Brothers to the Rescue (but not in a patriarchal or condescending way)

Then, this past year, as I stumbled ungracefully through some personal difficulties, I was heartened to rediscover all my Asian and Asian Pacific American Older (and Younger) Brothers standing there beside me. Although I had not really talked to them or paid any attention to them for years, there they suddenly were when I needed them. I found great comfort in how quickly and unhesitatingly they rallied around me, offering a different sort of calm support, perspective, and experience set.

I often felt like a princess high in a castle tower surrounded by a circle of Older Brothers standing shoulder to shoulder like military retainers, who were then surrounded by a wider circle of wise and tough Older Sisters, practically daring any handsome prince to even try to mess with our Wang Kai-Hwa, darling of the Asian Pacific American community here. Although I was a bit disturbed by the fairy tale imagery (anyone who knows me can vouch that there are no sissy romantic fairy tale fantasies in my worldview), I felt protected and safe inside their circles.

Older Brother Jimmy reassures me that my children and I are an important part of his family and offers me a job in Shanghai. Older Brother Minh at Yale talks to me about graduate schools. Older Brother Ben cooks me bi bim bop while shouting over the sizzle of his giant wok in the Eastern Accents kitchen, “We’re Shandong, we have to stick together!” Older Brother Wei (also Shandong) turns me on to the most incredible Jasmine tea at his Sweetwaters Café and starts introducing me to his friends, “Only Asian men for you from now on.” Older Brother Steve fixes my car without laughing at me after I crash it into an embankment. Older Brother Roland puts me on the board of a national APA nonprofit and then circulates my resume around the country. Older Brother Peter talks to me about agents and publishers. My Greek Brother Evan (how I came to have a Greek Brother is another story for another day) helps me strategize how to impress the University’s Center for Chinese Studies. Younger Brother Dug’s kung fu skills are put at my disposal, should I need them. Hunky Hapa Brother Alex gives me financial investment tips and takes me to the movies. Older Brother KS offers me advice about law school and hope about art (and a virtual kiss through cyberspace that nearly makes me faint).

A Family to Call One’s Own

When I go to a Yellow/Brown Bag lunch at the Asian/Pacific Islander American (A/PIA) Studies Program in American Culture, I feel instantly at home. All the professors (tenured or not), lecturers, graduate students, undergraduates, and friends are A/PIA, plus a few Native Americans and Hispanic Americans. Here, every voice--male or female, young or old--is heard and taken seriously. We are all brothers and sisters here. We are all in this together. We do not need to fight each other for scraps of power. I do not find the hushed and awed stratification of other “dead white guy (only I’m not dead yet)” departments where I have to fight to be seen or heard or treated with respect.

As my new friend A and I share a pot of Older Brother Wei’s incredible Dragon Pearl Jasmine Tea at Sweetwaters Café, I am asked, “Why Asian men?” I start explaining all the usual reasons cited by us journalists: politics, self-esteem, identity, self-hatred versus self-love, brainwashing by the mainstream media, more politics, statistics, aesthetics, cultural comfort, comfort food, yellow fever, bananas, Twinkies, jook sing, and more.

I stop dead mid-sentence when I suddenly realize that all the usual reasons do not apply to me right now, in this moment.

After years of living a busy and full “women and children only” sort of lifestyle, I find the sudden reappearance of my APA Brothers surprisingly gratifying. I did not feel lacking before, but now I feel so much more whole and content. I am a better, more balanced woman for having them, naturally, in my life. So for Women’s History Month (and in the wake of last year’s crazy midlife crisis), I want to simply thank our Asian Pacific American Brothers for being there with us.

Also of Interest

• Women's History Month @ Asian American Village
  Archive section includes readings focused on APA women, including annual Villager contributions to the APA Women's Wall of Fame